Working Space/Living Space

Over the past few weeks, I've been evaluating the space in my house. Working space, and living space. Working space includes craft supply storage, including fabric and yarn. Working space also includes sewing machines, looms, yarnwinders, spinning wheels, and the like.

Living space includes my bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, entry room/dining room, and library. I'm counting writing and my desk in the living space, not working space, since it really doesn't take up that much room.

So what I am aiming for is a smaller living space with a working space/studio incorporated inside of the same house.

Obviously, that means the Green Room and living room are now the studio, and my former craft room is the storage room for supplies, etc. There will be one spare bedroom and the Project Room for projects.

The living room and the Green room are the two largest rooms in the house. They are both ideally suited to become the studio.

So, in essence, I am splitting my house in two.


It's really only a different way of looking at my (rather large) house and repurposing the rooms to fit my needs more than anything else. I'm actually kind of excited about this.


So--what I'm planning to do is this:


The library will become my "living room"; it is, after all, my favorite room in the house. Eventually, I'd like to have a loveseat in here, at the end of the table in front of the fireplace. The table will stay in place, because who doesn't need a largish table in a library, after all?


My desk will be leaving the library, and moving to the Green Room to become my studio desk, due to the fact that the drawers and cubbyholes would fit the studio better than my writing. My nice walnut table will become my desk in here. I can always move my netbook wherever I want, after all, so the stationary desk does not have to be large.


I have bookcases to set up, a door to remove (from the closet), bookcases to move around, and my desk to move, obviously, and that's just in the library.


In the Green Room, either--


--My desk will be situated where the chest of drawers with doors (storage) currently resides. That will go beside the gateleg table along the wall behind the big loom. The gateleg table will stay in place where it is.


or


--My desk will go where my workbench currently resides, and my workbench and storage shelves will go where the chest of drawers with doors currently resides. I haven't decided which I prefer quite yet. The blue bookshelf will go on top of my desk like it was when my desk was upstairs. The pine bookshelf will go on top of the chest of drawers with doors. The white bookshelf will go on top of the half table that sits against the wall. The only piece of misplaced furniture is the tall Empire style table, and that can go where the walnut table currently sits, on the other side of the couch/bed in the living room portion of the studio. It can house my yarnwinder and other things. Or it can go elsewhere.


Upstairs in my bedroom there will also be changes. The little oak desk I've been wanting to set up (to use upstairs) will be set up. The pink comfy chair will move from what will become the crafting supply storage room into my bedroom. All crafting supplies except for what is kept downstairs in the Green Room will be kept--organized--in the Supply Room. The small chest of drawers or the larger one from the other bedrooms will have to be carried into the Supply Room once I get to that point. The oak desk, table, and chest that are already in there can stay in there.


Now, this does destroy my idea of a fiction library upstairs, but in all actuality, that's okay. I don't need two libraries. Keeping all fiction books in my hallway upstairs still works fine. I'm not out of room, and the bookcases I have work well right there anyway.


The first step--the actual honest-to-goodness first step--is to move the chest of drawers with doors to its new spot in the Green Room. Once that happens, I can move my blue desk into the Green Room and swap around more bookshelves, etc. Once that happens, I can redo the library. Once that happens, I can continue on, until I'm finished.


Now that I have a plan, I want to be done rearranging by January 31st. Yes, I realize that's not very far away, but what has been holding me up was the lack of a clear idea of how I wanted my working space and living space to look and flow. Now that I have a plan, it should go much quicker.


There will be lots of auctions posted on Ebay, stuff posted on Ravelry, and probably Craigslist too, because some things will not fit into the end-plan of my working space and living space. And the Project Room needs to be completely reorganized, not that it was very organized in the first place, truthfully.


And once I get upstairs, I may just change my mind and switch the spare rooms around, since it would almost make more sense to have the Supply Room be the room with two closets (and one built-in wardrobe), but we'll see what happens when we get to that point.


After that, I will reopen my Etsy shop and start with the second piece of my plan... more on that to come.