Thursday, May 27, 2010

Before: Scraproom Remodel

Hi, everyone! We have started the scraproom remodel, so I took some before pictures for you guys & I didn't even clean/tidy before I took them!

Picture of the whole room from the doorway:

As you can see, the room is very cluttered and that there is no way to move easily throughout the room. The lighting was also very poor & something that needed to be addressed.

Close up of closet organizer:

The closet organizer was functional when we bought it, but my style of scrapbooking changed. There was nothing wrong with the organizer, I just needed to adjust how I stored things to make it functional again. I took some of the pressure off the closet organizer by installing a pegboard, which you'll see in the "After" post.

Photo Printer Corner w/ Album Cabinet:

This corner is the worst area. It is hard to get to & a waste of space.


This cabinet used to be where I stored all of my scrapbook supplies. That certainly changed!

Cricut station:

I love my Cricut, but it is low to the floor here and across the room from me. I need to move it closer to where I work.

The room just wasn't working for me anymore. There was stuff everywhere & even doing a purge didn't help with the clutter and piles. we simply didn't have the right storage in there for purposes we needed the room to accomplish.

So while Mr. Lifeguard was away in Afghanistan, I measured the room and all the furniture & we created a scale drawing of the room & all the furniture in it. This allowed us to move the furniture around to find the most functional arrangement without breaking a sweat. This also allowed us to see if pieces we had our eye on would fit in the room & still allow us space to function. Once we had our plan decided, we needed to get to work!

This is what the room looked like as we emptied everything out of it:






While we were working, we stored the stuff temporarily in the living room. This gave us space to move around in the scraproom:


I know some of you have already seen the completed room on UStream, but I'll be posting photos and also {maybe, I hope} a video in another post that highlights what changes were made to the room. Look for that at the beginning of next week!

Speaking of UStream, remember that there are two live shows today! One at 2:00 PM EDT {GMT/UTC-4} and one at 9:00 PM EDT {GMT/UTC-4}, both over on my UStream Channel!

~Kathryn
Life's a beach. Scrapbook it.

6 comments:

  1. Uau! it's incredible all the stuff we have in the scraproom and how it needs to be adapted as we are changing styles. I've seen "your back wall" of the finished room at ustream but it's going to be great to see completely the before and after (like one of those homestyle tv programs) ;)
    P.S.: Mr.Lifeguard=soldier?

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  2. Whoa! The photo printer corner made me cringe....I'm dealing with a similar space-nightmare, so I can't wait to see photos of the newly reorganized rooom/space/furnishings...amazing sometimes what some reorg. and new lighting can do...you've mentioned IKEA before and alluded to new things, so I'm excited for you if you were able to get some new storage. ALSO - love the new layout on the blog - brighter! : )

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  3. LOL! And you just changed the blog layout again! Loving it...though the words are slightyly cut off - what does it say, "Creative minds are seldom tidy?" From personal experience, I concur!

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  4. Hi, Veronica! Yes, Mr. Lifeguard is in the United States Air Force! :D

    LOL, Erin! I guess I have remodelling on the brain! Did the scraproom, now it's time to do the blog. The words do say "Creative Minds are Seldom Tidy" and I will have to think about the size. Right now they will show on a higher resolution screen, like a desktop monitor, but not on a laptop. If I make them smaller, though, then they will have a frame around them on desktops. What to do?

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  5. don't you like the frame around them? probably it will pop them if they are on a smaller size...

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  6. Hey there, Kathryn...so eager to see your finished room. Yeah, we all started with one cabinet, actually for me it was one box. Hehehe, no excuses, just accept it. Our hobby/craft/art is acquisitive by nature. I'm a studio voyeur so I'm gonna stay tuned!

    Regards...Liz

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