Saturday, April 25, 2015

Cleaning and Reorganizing My Quilting/Sewing Closet

Don’t hold this messy closet against me but this is what my quilting/sewing closet looked like the Saturday morning, April 18th and probably would still look like this if it would have been a sunny day.IMG_3963That rainy Saturday morning John was sitting at his desk and commented to me that he really didn’t know what he would do that day since he couldn’t be in the field planting corn.  I suggested that we make the changes in the closet that we had planned and had supplies for.  He thought that was a good idea so while he was out feeding the cows and checking for new calves I emptied the closet.  As you can guess by looking at the photo there was a lot, and I mean a LOT of stuff to remove.

I just can imagine that none of you ever have storage areas that get to be such messes do you?  I feel lucky to have a great closet but as you can see I was having trouble keeping it tidy. I couldn’t easily find anything and putting things away was another problem even though I did have plastic bins for different colored fabric in my attempt to have my fabric sorted.  The problem was that the large bins were extremely heavy so I had started putting it in smaller bins but then had to stack them and of course what I wanted to use was always in the bottom bin.IMG_3967IMG_3966I have a set of kitchen upper cabinets on the end of the 4.5’ x 7’ walk in closet that I can use for storage too.  This space (closet) was used as the office by John’s parents when they lived in the house and we decided to put shelves in for my fabric and quilt “stuff” storage when we moved in.  I feel very lucky to have this much space for my quilt/sewing things, although I do have to store folding chairs, table leaves and a couple of card tables here too.  IMG_3972After many trips from the closet to the family room I got it emptied.  Can you believe all this stuff was in there there?  I moved the chairs away from my kitchen table to enable me to walk around to refold the fabrics and re-pack smaller boxes for all the fabric.IMG_3975
IMG_3974As you can see I did leave a path between the boxes and worked to sort and sort and sort some more.  I tossed some things, have a box of things to give away and pulled out more fabrics that will get cut into strips and squares for scrap quilts.  I have been quilting since 1981 so have collected lots of fabrics over the years and to be honest I will probably never use my older fabrics unless they are all cut up and mixed with lots of other fabrics.

While I was sorting and organizing my stuff John was working on the closet.  We didn’t make any big changes but took out the middle shelves and re-spaced them adding an additional shelf.  This will enable me to use the smaller plastic boxes which will make them lighter and easier to handle and make it so I don’t have to stack the fabric boxes.  Hopefully I will put the boxes back with the sorted fabrics when I get done using them and keep the closet neater than I have in the past.IMG_3977I worked many, many hours to sort and organize each of the boxes and decide where they should be placed in the closet. I finished the process and am so happy.  This is what it looked like Sunday April 19th around 6 pm.  After this photo was taken I added labels to the ends of the boxes too so the contents can be easily identified.IMG_3978As you can see we have lots of folding chairs but we seem to entertain large groups fairly often so have quite the collection of chairs and need them to be easy to access and this is the best place to store them.IMG_3981
IMG_3979I am keeping the fabrics on the bottom 3 shelves, batting and other lighter things on the top shelf and larger cuts, old jeans, purse making supplies and two large bins of the fabrics that will be cut up into strips at a later date.  I can slide these big boxes out and back without having to lift them. 

This was a giant job and starting it the weekend before I left to go to Paducah kept me at the job to finish it in a short amount of time.  I am so happy about this newly organized space I am almost giddy.

Happy, happy me,
Lynn

6 comments:

Shari said...

What a great transformation and tidy-up. I'm in the middle of swapping one old bedroom for another and I too can't believe all the stuff that came out. My sort is taking longer but I persevere.

marilyn said...

looks fantastic! I always get inspired, but then never actually finish the job. I get so distracted by all the unfinished projects I find and then start working on something and leave the room a mess. You have inspired me to start organizing something today!

Mimi said...

Don't you just want to go in there and "stare"?

http://thankfullga447 said...

I love the change, I organized 2 weeks ago but now my room is disorganized again. But that is okay that means I am getting things done. Enjoy your trip.

Jen said...

It looks great! You are lucky to have a nice big closet for your fabric. Awhile back, I organized my fabric and decided it was time to use up the really old stuff, so that's my challenge to myself right now! I hope you're having a great trip, can't wait to hear about it!

Sherry said...

Good for you!

My fabric, books, etc. are in the basement. It used to be pretty organized.

Then I got married, and we suffered 2 sewer floods in the past 4 years and things have gotten into a complete jumble.

I would love to take everything out of the basement and go through it all but there is just too much stuff & not enough time.

But I now have a goal. . . . DH wants to retire & move in about 7 years (give or take). . . and I refuse to move all this stuff as it is.

Guess I will be going through stuff one tote box at a time until it is finished.

Your post gives me hope that it can be done.

Thank you.

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