Office ~ Craft Room Makeover Before

It is a new year and like so many others, I am on a mission to declutter and get organized.  I have been working on a variety of projects including the master bathroom, kitchen junk drawer and my closet.  However, the big monkey on my back is the junk room home office/craft room. 

For the past year, this room has not been used for much more than hiding boxes and crap when company comes over.  Of course, it has been set up as an office and craft room but used more as a storage space for those supplies.  I generally do my crafting and sewing on the dining room table.  And our home office work is done with laptops on our laps on the couch (both me and my husband).

So this is the UGLY TRUTH as it looked before I started this morning.

I told you it was a junk room.  Let me give you a closer look!

Scary isn't it!  I know I was scared.  I also know that I was going to need divine intervention a plan.  So here is what I set out to do...

Stage 1:  Unload & Sort

Do you remember the TV show Clean Sweep?  In that show, Peter Walsh (my organizing and decluttering idol), first completely emptied the room in question and sorted through the items piece by piece.  I decided to use this same technique.

Step one was to empty EVERYTHING out of the office.  I chose to leave the furniture because I have a pretty clear vision of how we want the space to function and have worked out a floor plan using an online software program.

Fortunately, we have a large "formal living/dining room" with no furniture so I used this space as my staging area.  I brought each item out of the office and put it in one of nine areas.

Scrapbooking

Sewing

Crafts

Decor

Home Office

Technology

Other Space

Trash

Donate/Sell

This is what I ended up with:

Again - very overwhelming.  Just looking at these piles brought on a bit of anxiety so I let the Virgo in me take over and I moved on to stage 2.

Stage 2:  Clean Slate

Taking a break from the overwhelming piles of stuff, I headed back into the office for a bit of cleaning.  So I cleaned.  Dust. Vacuum.  Wow!  Now it came time to finalize my plan.

This project is a huge undertaking.  I worked all day and am very happy with my progress.  Yet I have a long ways to go.  I am going through the items in each area, organizing, downsizing and putting like items together.  Nothing is allowed back into the space without first being properly sorted, labeled and stored.

Come back next Wednesday as I share my progress.  I would love to say that I will have the AFTER but we will see how it goes.