Stress reduction courtesy of Ikea, a good friend, and an allen wrench

Last weekend, I did some organizing in my craft/guest/work room with the help of my pal, Ramona.

The poor girl was stuck in this room:

[Soothing, isn't it? Almost... spa like.]

This was my sewing table:

[Not so odd that the sewing machine never even made it out of the box.]

The computer blogging/photo editing workspace:

[See also: one post every two months.]

And the two closets in the room being used ... um, "non-optimally":




So Ramona, the queen of organization and helping me get my shit together, and I went up to North Austin and roamed around the beautiful and strange Ikea. After a bit, we settled on the Ivar storage system.

Much cranking and a fair bit of drilling later...




And then some thoughtful rearranging...

[Similar view as first pic... we moved the futon under the window and lined the shelving up on the long wall. Much more soothing sleepspace now.]

It is still a bit of a WIP, as I have a bunch of little odds and ends on that table to deal with, but it is sure a lot better!


[All the crafts are contained--and I can finally SEE all my fiber--and the sewing/work table rolls away from the wall so I can work in the middle of the room.]

The computer was moved into one of the closets (someday I would like this closet to have a built-in desk).

[The desktop, she is cleared!]

That second closet still needs some shelves and to be better utilized, but is much more orderly and its all about small steps towards better.

I have this crazy dream, a plan to quit my job... It is a couple of years away, but it is a light at the end of a long, draining tunnel. This room will hopefully be an office and workspace someday. All of these blog posts and a nearly finished sweater would lend some credence to the idea that I hope is true: that a better space makes for better productivity.