My studio - before and after!

I spent some time recently having a good tidy up, sort out, throw out etc of my studio. I say studio, when it is really a small conservatory-cum-cat room, that I just took over!

I had taken a few photos of the mess it had got into which I'd forgotten about, so I can show you a sort of before and after style selection. There's something quite satisfying about re-organising your work space, especially when you have brand spanking new units in which to store things! The excitement was full on once we'd assembled the new units - I even enjoyed throwing things away to make more room.

I'm ashamed to say that this is the state my worktop was in before I began my big clean up - somehow I just kept on working amongst all the items I'd used and the longer I carried on like that, the harder it was to stop myself from doing so! Here it is before:

See how small my actual work area had become?

Above my worktop area and to the left are some bookshelves, which were again beginning to look cluttered:

The difference between the above images and the same areas now is vast, as you can see:

I have kept the plastic drawer units under the worktop, just re-organised the contents.

I have since re-located these units and the contents are safely stored in my shiny new units!

I made use of large cardboard boxes and kept everything on the floor previously...

The shelf you see in the photo above has now been relocated to the far end of the conservatory, and only my CD player and CDs are on it now. All "dust gathering" items are hidden away from view.

IKEA, I love you!

I was particularly pleased with my two new purchases from IKEA - the large, square cupboard unit and the A2 sized drawer unit (which is on castors, even better!). You can get an idea of how much they both hold by looking at the stuff I've stored away:

There are two shelves in each quarter of the big white unit, with the option of adding more if necessary. I found the drawer unit useful for my stock of wallpaper, brown paper and shiny blue textured paper on a roll! I am a huge stationery geek and just love anything to do with paper, card, pens, folders, notepads etc! I recently got given a pile of blank notebooks that were going to be thrown away and I actually got quite emotional when I saw them! I think it's the prospect of filling them up that I've always liked so much.

I've also started to label just about every container and drawer (thought not the new ones) I've got so that I can instantly tell what I've got stored away. I've accumulated so many card-making bits and pieces that my original grey A4 sized drawer unit is still in use with those items alone - I have only hand-written the labels at the moment, but I will be making smart new ones on the PC soon!

The smaller plastic drawer unit is home to all the paints I need for creating my hard-backed notebooks. Very handy. I was actually quite miffed when I recently bought the 3 new paints you can see to the side of that unit and discovered when they arrived that they would not fit in the drawers!

The window-shelf above my worktop. Note the labels everywhere!

View of my easel from my worktop.

Even more room to store things temporarily on top of the new unit!

My companion when I'm working - well, one of them!

You would usually find one or more cat here!

The Sunflowers tapestry I started for Keith a long time ago. I really must finish it!

I am currently working on a trinket box and mini painting combination set - "A Bit Of Purple", similar style to my "Geometric Green" series of the same. I will post some pics when I've finished it. You'll have noticed there are a few paintings that need finishing in my work area - I've deliberately left them on display so to speak in order to spur me on to finishing them! The painting on the easel is one that I will be painting over soon. It was painted for the last production at the Bilton Theatre.

Feel free to comment, or ask me any questions about my new-look studio!