Welcome back to day 16 of our Craft Room Organization Challenge.
This week is all about outfitting our craft rooms with what we need or are lacking in general. Yesterday I shared the important considerations for a craft room table and other work surfaces, and give you a link to a list of affordable craft tables that I think are really awesome. Hopefully you are either set in this department or you are on track to get what you need!
Today we’re going to turn our attention to shelves and drawers, which is arguably the foundation of craft room organization. It’s tough to organize if you have no drawers or shelves upon which to store things.
Challenge 16: Get Your Drawers and Shelves
Generally, the more drawers and shelves we have in our craft rooms, the more storage we have in general. If you have a lot of stuff and need to prioritize on one thing, go for more drawers and shelves. Here are some things to keep in mind when picking out drawers and shelves for your room:
DEPTH: Drawers and shelves that are too shallow — unless that’s how you want them — will only frustrate you. Remember that you will need places for both big and small things. If you already have organizer boxes you’re using, measure them so you now how deep your shelves should be.
QUANTITY: Unless you are a particularly minimalistic crafter, a few shelves probably isn’t going to help a lot. Go with MORE than you think you’ll need, so long as they fit in your room.
STURDINESS: If at all possible, avoid the cheap cardboard storage units. They won’t last very long. Also be wary of cheap plastic drawers — they’re often hard to open and get unstable when packed too full.
For my craft room, I went crazy on the drawers and storage. I bought seven drawer units and three shelving units. And that’s in addition to the built-in shelving already in my room. I got IKEA Alex drawers and IKEA Kallax shelves, then added Linmon tabletops on top. I made a desk area out of one set of drawers and made some large mat board storage between them and the tabletop above it. Here’s a photo that shows some of the drawers and shelving I installed:
Day 16 Assignment: Decide what you need for your drawers and shelves, and get it or make it. I know it’s not likely you’ll do this today, but keep pushing forward and come up with a plan. If you find a new drawer or shelving unit, take a picture and share it on Facebook. If you have a plan for something, draw it out or find a photo of something similar and share it with us.
Until tomorrow,
