Showing posts with label room. Show all posts
Showing posts with label room. Show all posts

Monday, August 10, 2015

More Dorm Organization Tips for College

Last year I found some great suggestions for ways to keep your dorm room space maximized.  Here are those tips again with a few extra added suggestions!

You're off to college with all your stuff!  Now where are you going to put it?  That is perhaps the most important question you will answer during the first week and it may define how well you coexist with the stranger with whom you will share a room for the next 9 months.  Here's a compilation of some of the best ones I have found.  Some even have a tutorial to show you how to make/do what you see in the picture.

1.  The key to dorm room (or small apartment bedroom) organization is maximizing space - storing as many things as possible in the smallest amount of space.  In a room with limited square footage, the key is using the vertical space.  Here is a great article from BuzzFeed that has some great ideas


2.  Bedside Solutions - Keep your reading materials, phone, remote and other things close without a bedside table.  The second caddy hangs between the mattress and base of bed.  You can make lots of those caddies to go around the bed for odd storage.



3. Keep your electronics charged without losing cords or small items.


4.  Keep your desk space clear.  Here's a clever way to move your desk supplies up on the wall by attaching small magnets to your desk items and putting them on a metal board.


5.  Over the door storage - the back of the closet door is prime real estate.  You can use the clear plastic bags or baskets that hang behind the door.  If you keep the storage high enough you will still have room for some hooks toward the bottom of the door for wet towels, etc.  Click on the first picture for more over the door storage ideas.

   

6.  Maximize the space under the bed.  The higher up the bed, the more space you will have under it for storage (or living).  Warning - be careful not to prop up a bed in an unsafe way!  Depending on how much space you can get under the bed, you can put things as big as your desk or as small as under the bed plastic storage bins.  Use a flat sheet to create a decorative "curtain" to hide stuff under a raised bed.



7.  Closet organization.  In addition to the over the door storage I already mentioned, you need to use hangers that maximize the vertical space.  Try a skirt hanger that can handle six items at once, or soda can tabs or chains to stagger multiple hangers.  Use a tie rack for camisoles or tension rods on the sides of the closet for shoes.



For many more links to dorm room organization, must-have items, decorating ideas and more, check out my College Organization board on Pinterest.

Strategic planning is best for the dorm room, but don't forget to involve your room mate in the process! Good luck at school.

cindy

Friday, June 8, 2012

Craft Room Reveal!

The day is finally here - my new craft room is DONE!!  I've been working in there and I love it.  Over the next couple of weeks, I'll show some detailed features of the new craft room, but in the meantime, here's some before, during and after pictures:
BEFORE

DURING

AFTER



I have too much fabric!

BEFORE

DURING

AFTER



My new cutting table where the couch (and mess) used to be.  There is storage under the table for scrap fabrics and extra yarn in bins.  The table cover is made from two curtain panels from Target.  The beer can collection is gone!


BEFORE

DURING

AFTER


Finally, a functional sewing area!  Now I don't have to drag my sewing projects into the dining room and keep them spread out for weeks at a time.  My favorite part of the room.

BEFORE

AFTER


I'm really proud of this part.  I've never had a place to scrapbook and now I have a scrapbook section of the room!  This was another big revelation - I have WAYYY too much paper!  I think I have enough for 20 scrapbooks, maybe more!

So there it is!  I'm so happy it's done, and frankly, so is my family.  It's my very own room for creativity.  Over the next couple weeks, I'll show all the sections of the room and how I organized them.

cindy

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

DIY Fabric Shelf Storage

I'm almost done with my craft room.  I don't want to show the whole reveal because I'm still thinking of ways to decorate it.  However, it's almost completely functional.  One of the things that really shocked me was just how much fabric I have!


Yikes!  What a mess!  I don't buy too much of any fabric (usually not enough by the time I get to a project), but I am a sucker for the remnant bin at JoAnns.  It's a great place for fleece and flannel.  Anyway, I digress.  I am lucky to have these wonderful built-in shelves in the closet:


No problem, I thought.  I'll just neatly fold and organize the fabric on the shelves.



I was able to organize the fabric by type and fold the smaller fabrics into fat quarters and arrange them by color.  But there was still too much fabric!   The flannel I have was especially difficult.  I don't have a lot of any particular pattern, but I do have lots of different patterns.  Flannel takes up a great deal of space when you fold it.

I love reusing stuff and I came up with this great idea to use old DVD cases to wind flannel for storage.  Your know, like this:


By creating little "books" of flannel, I was able to use this discarded bookshelf.


Hey, I can see the floor!  I also love looking at my fabric stash.  I just wish I could make all the things I am imagining.

cindy

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Craft Room Musings

I've been thinking about it a long time.  I've had my eye on our den, picturing what it would look like if I moved most of the furniture out and converted it to a craft room.  A couple of weeks ago, I came home on a Friday and found that my wonderful husband moved the furniture!  Wow - now I actually had to think about this.  Here's the before pictures when the furniture was there:



Yep, that's my husband's beer can collection on those shelves high up.  Here's what it looked like after the furniture (but not all the junk) was removed:


Now I actually have to figure out what I'm going to do!  I've been working at it for a couple weeks now and I think I will get it usable within the week.  However, I really want to paint and make curtains and decorate :(  It's just going to have to wait.  I'm trying to be thrifty, so I've had a couple of ideas I'll be sharing here soon.

My big score so far has been a 6 foot table from a Blockbuster store that is closing.  It has a durable plastic top and it only cost me -

wait for it

$30!!

Unfortunately, I have to wait another week or so until the store actually closes.  Hopefully by then I will have some pictures to show of my usefully organized (but probably not pretty) craft room.  I'll leave you with the rooms I can only see on Pinterest:


  cindy



Monday, January 2, 2012

Dreaming of a Craft Room

In 2011, my craft/sewing/crochet/scrapbooking activities blossomed.  I think my husband would say they exploded.  Right now I have a large armoire in my bedroom filled with yarn and scrapbook paper.  I have two scrapbook carriers full of scrapbook supplies.  I have a closet full of fabric that has spilled over on the floor of the den.  I wasn't trying to use this clutter for this purpose, but Kentster has agreed to let me convert the den into a craft room.

I've been thinking about how to make the transition, but first it requires moving furniture and items in several rooms.  It's a little like one of those little puzzles you had as a kid where you slide the plastic pieces around in an effort to get the picture straight.

Here's where we start:


The couch is going and the weights too.  Notice my husband's beer can collection on shelves high above the window.  We're still negotiating those.


Everything in this picture is going.


That large (and very heavy) computer armoire is going and that will be the biggest task.  The TV and Wii has to stay in the room.


There's the closet with my fabric stash.  Not all of that is fabric, so it has to go.  The other side of the closet has clothes - those have to go too.  That big pile in front of the closet is overflow of my sewing stuff.

Yep, there is lots of work to do.  Hopefully the transformation will be complete before the end of 2012, but I will post it here when it's done.

cindy