(Forgive me, Phil Collins)

Monday was a holiday here, and the last day of my vacation. (Let me just say – I’m SOOOO glad I took a week off for the move. Not having to worry about work made going back and forth repeatedly so much easier). With it coming to and end, I really wanted to get the studio in order.

After a good sleep-in, and a late breakfast, I opened the door.

This is what I faced.

Yikes!

The day of the big move, it was so hot, and our workers were working so hard, that I told them not to worry too much about boxes that said Valerie’s office vs. Valerie’s studio. As long as the boxes made it upstairs, I’d sort them out later. As a result, there were more things in there than should be.

I started pulling boxes and things into the bedroom across the hall, just so I could get in the room and start to sort things out. One of those things was Peno’s old nap basket…

Burton immediately took up residence and settled in to watch the show.

Bit by bit, boxes started to disappear and the room started to shape up to what I had envisioned when we first looked at the house.

Burton eventually moved to a more active “helping” role.

By supper time, the room had gone from a sea of cardboard to this…

As you may recall, in the townhouse, all of this (with the exception of the grey table) was in one small room (about half the size of this one) along with my library (two large Ikea Billy Bookcases), and my office. (Now my office and library are in a separate room – I’ll share that another day as it’s not quite unpacked.)

In the townhouse, my office desk doubled as my cutting station. Now I have this HUGE table for cutting, as well as storing my current project boxes. (It’s our old yarn dyeing table). Notice those bins underneath? They hold all my yardage, and I bought them specifically to go under the table. They have wheels, making them easy to pull out when needed. I had lamented that I hadn’t bought a fourth, but it’s a good thing I didn’t – three is all that will fit between the legs.

Above the table, at some point, I will hang a small design wall. I was hoping I’d have space for a floor-to-ceiling one, but it was not to be. Still – it will be enough for partial layouts and baby quilts. My bed is in the room directly across the hall, so for larger quilts, I can still make use of that.

Beside the table is my fabric collection – all sorted and organized! Doing all that pre-sorting and labelling before the move really made a big difference.

Adjacent to that is good ol’ Miriam and my handy dandy little ironing station. Curtains for the window she’s sitting under will be one of the first things I make on her. O

Beside Miriam is the “knitting corner!”. At the townhouse this was all tucked away in the closet (and could be hard to get at, at times. It’s all in ziploc baggies because we had a moth problem at the townhouse. The two totes and the cardboard box house yarn that wouldn’t fit on the shelves (though one is scrap sock yarn for another sock yarn blanket – or six). I’ve got to get knitting to make some space for the overflow!

Beside the knittin corner (and not pictured) is a HUGE closet. Right now it’s got all our Holiday decorations, and a few boxes of things I have to go through and decide what to donate and what to keep (I ran out of time to do that pre-move). Eventually, there will be more storage space in there.

But I fell SOOOOOOO much better now that it’s mostly in order. There’s some small things to file away, and as I finish unpacking the office, I’m sure I’ll come across studio items.

But the big work is done… and as soon as life slows down a bit – I can get back to the crafts I really love!