Welcome to the sleepout

I reorganised my sleepout this week and made it somewhere that is pleasurable to now be. I didn't take any before shots but imagine a junk room, where everything I didn't really have a place for went. I already had the below table in that corner, supposedly to do my sewing etc on, but it was so covered with material and scrapbooking supplies and other assorted stuff that there was no room to do any actual sewing. (The only other place to sew was at the dining table but that wasn't practical as I couldn't leave anything out.)

As well, our front door leads directly into this room, and so many times I'd be embarrassed about people coming to the front door, that I'd try to block the view inside with my body.

My craft supplies were in various containers and cupboards throughout the house, but of course I rarely remembered where things were.

Well no longer, because now the room is like this. (Bear in mind that this was an organisational makeover. The walls are desperately crying out for a paint because at the moment they're this really bad mottled brown...primitive without meaning to be.... and the carpet is foul but that's all for another day.)

In the far right corner beside the doors I put up these shelves that I picked up secondhand for only $2 or $3. I've tried to store as much of my supplies as possible in jars, so I can locate things easily and I also cos it looks pretty.

I'm really happy with the way it turned out. This tin holds my spools of thread and I love these scrabble letters.

My pretty ribbons and button collection.

This tin was bought several years ago for Christmas and never got put away. It was holding my record collection (and various junk)

but with a bit of spray paint it's now doing a better job holding my unfinished projects. The wicker hamper holds the girls' dress-up clothes.

I needed more storage so I made a shelf to go above the window. I keep things up here that I don't use much. I'm not totally happy yet with the arrangement but with a bit of tweaking, I'll get there. (You can see where I started cleaning and bleaching the walls prior to this.)

I am happy with this though. Barn star before (not bad but too primitive)

and after (thanks to some toile-esque scrapbooking paper).

This is my now-tidy craft table. Also a nice place to sit in the morning and read the paper. These two chairs belonged to the lady we bought the house off, but they were peeling and chipped and dirty. I gave them a good scrub and painted one blue and one green.

A close-up.

You can see more jars of goodies sitting on my lovely wide window sills.


I bought another suitcase to hold more sewing supplies but I'm undecided about whether to keep it the way it is or paint it. Blue, maybe? And on the wall above is some "3D art-work" that I'm really proud of the way it turned out. Remember these pictures with the green frames,

They now look like this....

and this......

and this.

(These are my Grandmother's button and quick-unpick.

I got all her sewing supplies when she died.)

And this is our little computer nook in the corner when you first come in through the front door. Nothing fancy, just simple and adequate to the job.

There's still a few more things I'd like to do.

Valance curtains? What colour do you think? White sheeting? Red or blue gingham?
And I'd like to make some bunting to hang below the shelf

and I've got a picture in the making to go above the shelf.

But at least I'm not ashamed of people coming to the front door now.