The size of the American home has increased threefold since 1968, yet for all that space, studies show we’ll spend over 150 days of our lives looking for lost items. Try as we might to cull the home storage stores for the perfect organizer, but in reality, organizational methods can be inexpensive and draw on your own tastes and creativity. One of the best places to store art and craft supplies is an in-law suite, where your interior decoration will mostly be undisturbed and where husbands and kids are less likely to rummage through your things. Here are a few ways to convert your guest room into your own personal workroom.
Storage Cubes
Cubes and stacking boxes can be as different as we are, and you can visit your favorite home storage stores to get a feel for the ones that suit you best. You can find storage cubes that are unobtrusive and can slip under beds and in closets so as not to disturb guests. Alternatively, bright, modular cubes can also be used as decorative accents or bedside tables. Your mother in law doesn’t need to know that there are three half-finished quilts hidden inside her unassuming nightstand.
Incorporating Crafts with Antique Furniture
If your home decorating aesthetic is on the vintage side, you can heighten the homey feel of the room with your own crafts and projects. You can search home storage stores for old-fashioned baskets and bins and fill them with balls of yarn or fabric swatches. You can also buy a bookcase online and put craft supplies alongside tomes, photographs, and trinkets, giving the room an intentional mixed-media feel. A second hand desk with pigeon holes can hold needles, buttons, and patterns. Get creative and play with what you have.
Mastering the art of concealment
When all else fails–when your tangle of yarn is so unsightly that even you don’t want to look at it, when you have too many knitting needles of varying sizes–the sometimes the best approach is to hide your craft supplies. Try hanging items inside closet or armoire door with a peg board. Visit home storage stores for a simple hanging organizer and hide it behind a decorative, floor length curtain. Consider investing in multifunctional furniture and place a corner organizer in out-of-the-way cabinets. You can clean up your clutter after your in-laws have left.
If you’re one of the 63% of all people who values their craft time, you know the importance of having a sacred space for all of your supplies. You may also have felt acquaintances look at you askance when you say you have made seven trips a day to the local home storage stores. Using your craft space as a combined guest room allows you to sneakily hide or flaunt your current projects while impressing friends and family who come to visit. Go ahead and invest in some new supplies for your Etsy store; you’ll figure out where to put it.