I so appreciate all your ideas and comments about my room!
I had to laugh at the number of people who suggested I move to the basement. Believe me, that has been in the back of my mind for years. Someday it may actually happen, but there are a lot of things that have to fall into place before I make that big move...... additional heat down there being one of them!! Maybe after I find a cheap, easy way to make a 20 foot by 20 foot basement with tile floor and paneled walls warmer, I might think more seriously about moving. But until then......
I'm in a big crunch for time, trying to check things off my to-do list that should have been taken care of long ago, so this will be a quick post, then you may not hear from me for a while again. I haven't had the time to try any of the sugggestions you have given me, so I thought that today I would share some of my favorite storage solutions.
As you can tell, I have a small space, but still have a lot of things that are packed in there. Not all of these are practical solutions, mind you. And not all of them are great solutions either. But they work for me. And who knows, they may work for you too.
One of my favorite storage places is this funny little drawer unit that I picked up at a local antique shop many years ago. I say that it is funny because the drawers are all cigar boxes, which are too long for the openings that they sit in. It sits almost 2" from the wall in the back so that the boxes "almost" close in the front! But thy are the perfect size to hold spools of thread, floss, needle case, small scissors, measuring tapes, pins..... you name something small and I probably have it in one of those drawers!
The top drawer that I have half open holds many of the needle cases that I've made out of old asprin tins, wool, and even the little tin cases that Fossil gift cards come in! I'll have to do a post on that someday......
And you can see how neat and tidy I am when I put away my tape measures. Mixing the old with the new..... you have to love it!!!!
And I'm sure you are familiar with the saying "out of sight, out of mind"? Well, that is so true for me! So I have many things that I put in glass jars, like threads, lace trim and buttons......
This way, I get to look at them all the time, and the those little balls of thread are so colorful sitting there. The smaller jar is full of little felted wool balls that I bought thinking that I would use them for.... well, I'm sure I had a good idea at the time, but it escapes me right now!
Spools like these are all over the place in antique stores, so I have lots of them and find that they work great for wrapping ribbons and trims, and they are fun to look at too!
Now, you may have wondered (or maybe you didn't) why I have the dry sink in my room and what is in it. Besides holding my ironing board on the top of it, I have stacks of wool inside of it....
And in the little opening beside my ironing board, I keep my Best Press, water, little scissors, etc. It keeps it within easy reach while I'm ironing, yet out of the way so that the cord doesn't knock things off onto the floor. It's not the neatest area, but it works!
The one problem with the wool inside is that I still need to find some boxes (besides these cardboard file boxes) that are the right size to easily slide in and out. These have worked for several years, but are starting to get all beat up on the bottom from pulling them out all the time. But, they hold all those little scraps that don't fold nicely, so it's nice to have them contained and in a box that is easy to dig through.
And you can see that I'm not neat about putting the nicely folded wool away either, as I look at this picture!
Okay, so I need to get back to work and try to warm up. It's only supposed to get up to 14 degrees tomorrow, so I'm going to stay inside next to my little space heater, and hope to get a lot of work done!
'til next time......
terri

