Hands Up if You're Guilty

[Sheilajeanne]

This applied to me before I had my current dedicated craft room. Now it's just the craft room and a small area in my kitchen... 

 

[Dwight]

I built a 22 by 14 dedicated craft / reloading / computer / lounge / etc . . . room.

My wife has never said "thank you" . . . but she was happy to see all that stuff get out of her house . . . 

May God bless,

Dwight

[kgg]

It might as well have said any flat surface rather then just the Kitchen Table as deep freezers are also great smooth flat surfaces.

kgg

[johnnydb]

I too have many craft hobbies.  

And they have a real ability to take over the house.  However, my wife has her own list of crafts and hobbies as well.   And there isn't a lot of crossover except for just a tiny bit here and there.  

 

So we both had to do something...and the solution was tote boxes.  We can have as many craft tote boxes as big as needed to hold our materials while we are not working with them.  Otherwise they are allowed to and do take over the whole house while we are in the midst of a project.  

Our new counter height dining room table (which i made) is an extension of our constant crafting by both of us.  

 

 

[jrdunn]

Guilty as charged.

[Sheilajeanne]

36 minutes ago, johnnydb said:

I too have many craft hobbies.  

And they have a real ability to take over the house.  However, my wife has her own list of crafts and hobbies as well.   And there isn't a lot of crossover except for just a tiny bit here and there.  

 

So we both had to do something...and the solution was tote boxes.  We can have as many craft tote boxes as big as needed to hold our materials while we are not working with them.  Otherwise they are allowed to and do take over the whole house while we are in the midst of a project.  

Our new counter height dining room table (which i made) is an extension of our constant crafting by both of us.  

 

 

Johnny - had to show you this:  

 

Edited May 30, 2022 by Sheilajeanne

[fredk]

I have to admit, that's how it is with me right now; living room, spare bedroom, spare temporary cutting table outside, kitchen table covered in things not for eating or cooking

[Sheilajeanne]

Before I moved to my current house, this was my tiny perfect leatherworking area:

 

[johnnydb]

30 minutes ago, Sheilajeanne said:

Johnny - had to show you this:  

 

Okay....

I have to admit that I'm really liking that idea.  Our closets are not containing the totes anymore.  

I like leather crafting a lot...but also woodwork...and as a recovering chef I have a LOT....and I do mean a LOT of cooking utensils and gadgets and dishes.  

On top of this I'm trying to start a bakery coffee shop which will eventually have a coffee roaster and patisserie shop for custom chocolates.  That all stemming from my annual gifts of cookies and chocolate truffles I give every year as Christmas presents.   

But I also enjoy charcuterie arts with sausages and kielbasa....

But I need to make bread and danish and croissants.   I have five gallon buckets of flour and 22lb bags of fine chocolate filling workspace in my kitchen.  And when cookie/candy season is afoot....I make over 1,000 cookies and 1500 pieces of fine chocolate truffles every year.  (Whitmans ain't got nothing on me) 

Nevermind the gingerbread neighborhoods of houses I provide children to decorate each year.  

My wife does knitting and sewing and papercrafting and professional writing/editing....and helps with packaging the treats for Christmas every year.  

She also is a schoolteacher at heart and does child crafts with our nieces every year...from fairy necklaces to I'm not exactly sure.   

She is about to start with stained glass windows....I guess I'll need to make some fine frames for each one.  

[Sheilajeanne]

14 minutes ago, johnnydb said:

Nevermind the gingerbread neighborhoods of houses I provide children to decorate each year.  

My wife does knitting and sewing and papercrafting and professional writing/editing....and helps with packaging the treats for Christmas every year.  

She also is a schoolteacher at heart and does child crafts with our nieces every year...from fairy necklaces to I'm not exactly sure.   

She is about to start with stained glass windows....I guess I'll need to make some fine frames for each one.  

Good luck with that!   

[tsunkasapa]

In my work room I have 2 leather workbenches and my reloading bench. If I want to do leather, stuff gets shifted to my reloading bench. If I want to reload, it gets shifted to my leather bench. If my wife would get her stuff out of my room it would make my life better. I MAY just back my truck up to the window and chuck her stuff, then make like the Lone Ranger;  'To the dump, to the dump, to the dump dump dump'. 

[fredk]

Two questions; 

1. where do you keep your truck keys?

2. What hymns would you like at your funeral?

[Tugadude]

Currently I don't have any dedicated area for my leatherwork.  I do it wherever I can and I try to keep things tidy and clean up when I'm done.  Looking forward to finally being an empty-nester and having  room I can reserve for my hobbies.

[Sheilajeanne]

44 minutes ago, fredk said:

Two questions; 

1. where do you keep your truck keys?

2. What hymns would you like at your funeral?

  Too funny Fred! 

[Charley1]

My wife does machine embroidery, has 2 six needle machines and 1 10 needle machine. Lots and lots of fabric. Takes up a lot more room than my woodwork, leather work, and reloading.

[Bert03241]

Wow and I thought I was the only one with a whole house craft shop.Living room, dining room and both spare bedrooms are just over run with craft stuff ,  Hell my laser is setup in the living  room, and a table outside on the deck. I'm bad really bad, but I'm single. Hmm I wonder why LOL

[Sheilajeanne]

This house was an estate sale. The old lady who lived here before me was into crafts in a really big way. She had three or four sewing machines, and what is now my craft room was her sewing room. Two 15 foot long counters ran along each side of the room. She had a kiln out in the laundry room where she did pottery. She also did stained glass and made lawn ornaments out of metal and ceramic.

There were shelves EVERYWHERE in both the basement and the laundry room. I heard her children filled at least two dumpsters with all the stuff she'd accumulated over the years  when they were preparing the house for sale. I never got to see what they threw out, but I'm sure a lot of it was good stuff from her crafts that they just couldn't find a home for locally.

She was a widow and lived alone unless her family was visiting, so there was no one to complain about all her craft stuff. Wish I'd had a chance to see it before she died!

Here's the board over her sewing area where she kept her scissors and spools of thread. I already took down the shelves that were to the left of the board.

  

Edited May 31, 2022 by Sheilajeanne

[Sheilajeanne]

And THIS is what my leather craft area looked like BEFORE I moved into this house!  (Yeah, I know, I posted another view of this earlier, but this gives a better view of how I stored things.) 

There was a closet to the right of what you see in the photo where I stored dyes, glues etc. plus projects (kits) I was planning to work on, and also a cupboard in the kitchen where I stored large rolls of hide which wouldn't fit in the closet. The plastic drawers contain small things like rivets, snaps, letter sets, lace, thread, tracing paper, brushes and swabs, patterns, buttons, etc.

The wooden things under the bench are Ikea shelves I never got around to finding a use for when I moved into the house.  The room was an addition to the house, had patio doors at the far end, and got damn cold in the winter, thus the electric heater to the left of my chair.

 

Edited May 31, 2022 by Sheilajeanne

[Handstitched]

I started in my Mothers  small sewing room ..it was pretty packed out with materials etc...and then my leather 'stuff' .I couldn't get in because she was sewing, and vice versa.  Something had to give . 

A 20 x 20 workshop. But now thats too small now. 

When messing around with cars in an earlier life, I used to rebuild carbys and other car parts on the dining table...until it was dinner time....damn it, now I have to shift everything.So I guess I'm guilty for using various parts of the house  and furniture for doing 'stuff'...other than its intended purpose    

HS

[johnnydb]

On one hand my hobbies provide all kinds of gifts for others and a level of sanity for me to occupy my time.  

But then at times they make me wonder if I could be a focus of that television show  "Hoarders".  

It's a very delicate balance.  

[Sheilajeanne]

I feel for you!

Although the elderly lady who owned the house before me apparently had things well organized, all the many, many shelves were stuffed with craft materials of various sorts. It was quite a job for her children to get the house ready for sale. And it's made me think twice about buying more stuff, as I'm no spring chicken any longer.

[tsunkasapa]

1 hour ago, Sheilajeanne said:

I feel for you!

Although the elderly lady who owned the house before me apparently had things well organized, all the many, many shelves were stuffed with craft materials of various sorts. It was quite a job for her children to get the house ready for sale. And it's made me think twice about buying more stuff, as I'm no spring chicken any longer.

I think of it as 'Payback" for all the crap my son pulled when he was young.