Studio G: Part 1
Revamping a painting studio turning dumping ground, into a functional space for crafts and creative projects!
How it started…
This is a project that I’ve been excited about for a while. I had previously organized Granny’s craft supplies into a storage closet within her home, but this wasn’t a functional setup for everyday use. Craft projects are a lot of work, so a more permanent setup was needed for her to really dive into some creative projects!
The location for her permanent studio was actually a previously a studio/ old wash house (pronounced “warsh-house” for East Tennesseans) disconnected from the house. Before we could set up the space, we had our work cut out for us in the decluttering department.
A lot of what you see in the pictures is trash and junk accumulation. I kept assuring Granny that she should not to be embarrassed. We all have a dumping ground. Some of us have just been doing that for a longer period of time. In this case…decades. Other priorities, physical limitations and the overwhelm of the size of the project are all contributions spaces being overtaken with clutter and staying that way. This results in losing the functionality of these spaces, ordering replacements for things you can’t find and the guilt/ mental load knowing this is looming.
Also, these pictures bring me so much joy! I truly love when spaces start like this because the end result is going to be amazing! If you have a space like this, please utilize my contact page because “I love mess”!
THE PROCESS
I was eager and energized to dive in so I failed y’all on capturing progress during this portion of the project so my apologies, we’ll be a bit heavier on text for this section.
To reclaim this space, the trash went first and I was ruthless.
As I was on my trash spree, I started to pull items out of the space and group it by category. Often these “dumping ground spaces” include themes of items that do have a home, that home is just not easily accessible. This could be an odd Christmas decoration you find in February. So it goes to the dumping ground with a hodgepodge of amazon boxes, random kick knacks and other things that have outgrown more functional spaces in the home.
Tetris! We had so so so many challenges including electrical and plumbing no longer working. So lighting meant bringing in large construction lights, but I was also juggling space for a large shop vac to clean up cobwebs and what I believed to be mouse poop but later I happily discovered it was birdseed, whew!
Mildew was a problem in the space which made our purge of paper items much easier. I brought these out to the patio area and helped Granny work through the piles. So many items in the space have been outdated by technology so I explained that as we purged.
Magazines that Pinterest can replace.
VHS tapes… like a lot. The most VHS tapes I’ve ever seen in one location. I grouped these together, audited them to make sure I preserved any that were recordings of family memories, but I know very few people who still have a VHS player so these will still need to be donated.
A lot of frames for pictures. We kept some in the space, marked some to sell and will keep some for back stock outside the space.
QUICK TIP
Implementing a “1 In 1 Out” rule for purchases can be a good way to prevent the pile up! Let’s use the kitchen as an example. If you purchase a new kitchen gadget, audit your previous gadgets for one thats used very little OR never. So a new item from a household theme comes in, an older item goes.
Like for real goes.
Not to your dumping ground.
Out of the house.
BACK STOCK SUPPLIES
The excess items that were to be kept or stored for a future yard sale needed to go up to “the shop”. The shop is the equivalent of a 3-4 car garage. It is fantastic and also my next large project! It is equally as piled up with items, inefficiently grouped, stored and stacked. So I had to do a small purge there to open up space for things to move out of the studio. We then brought up items from the studio, grouped by themes.
For purposes of the craft studio, back stock basket weaving supplies and painting frames will live up there between projects because she has a lot of these supplies. When Granny goes for a hobby, she’s all in! So I expect the shop purge will include discoveries of more crafting treasures!
Here is a shop preview!
I look at this with heart eyes - so excited to tackle this space! There is SO MUCH POTENTIAL! :)
BACK TO THE STUDIO…
The space is cleared! It is truly chaos with items outside the space that needed to go back in after paint & flooring. Like all organizing projects, it gets so much worse before it gets better!
Stay tuned for Part 2 where I review our painting process, moving things back in and the final reveal!