New Year: Clean Slate

Happy New Year!  Have you made any resolutions?  Not me!  Not a single one.  But I did make a firm decision to start this year off with a clean slate.  Inspired by the video of Lotta Jansdotter's Open Studio Tour with Etsy, my first plan was to simply clean off my bulletin boards.  But then when I took a good look at my mess of a studio, I decided a bigger re-do was in order.  I spent half a day planning and choosing furniture and accessories at Ikea with a $500 budget and several days after that putting the stuff together and figuring out what to do with all my clutter.  My arm almost fell off from screwing everything together and my recycling/trash heap was pretty darn big, but I think it was worth it.

Here are some Before and After pics.



The piece of Victorian architecture was a gift from my husband for my first mother's day.  The two glassed in shelves are from Ikea (Billy bookshelves with Kiaby doors), so's the lamp (Tral).  The work desk is actually two desks from Pier One that I pushed together (I need a big space to work on).  The cat is Frank!



That big fat black chair was not very comfortable, so I replaced it with a very comfy red one (Ikea Klemens).  I got the desk (Micke), printer cart (also Miche), desk lamp (Mil), file holder (Spontan) and three magnetic bulletin boards (also Spontan) from Ikea.  The hubcap clock was a gift from my husband for Christmas this year.  It's from a 1960's era AMC Rambler (and from Etsy seller 8MileCreekDesigns).  Cool, huh?!  Oh, and there's Frank again, in the window.



Most of the clutter went into the shelves.  I covered the bottom six panes of glass with some mulberry paper so I could hide the ugly stuff down there.



The before picture makes me look like a hoarder, doesn't it?!  Most of that stuff is sewing supplies, which I inherited from my husband's grandmother who just recently passed away.  I've stored most of that under the work desk, to be pulled out when I finally learn how to sew.  And that bulletin board - what a mess!  I decided to just stick to one place to put up things I want to see every day - inspiration.  Some of that stuff had been up there on that bulletin board for at least 3 years.



Look at all that junk everywhere!  Boy, did I ever need me some drawers.  And now my computer is up off the floor, too.  This Ikea desk had a little space to hide all the cables from my printer and computer.  There is a very messy cable party going on that nobody can see now.  Yay!



Now there are only a few "dust catchers" out.  All my little horses and cars went behind glass.  But I had to display the beautiful 1950's Singer sewing machine that I inherited from my husband's grandmother.  He still raves about the ninja costumes she made for him on that machine when he was a little boy.  She took very good care of her first and only Singer.  It's still in perfect working order.

 What about you?  What are you doing to mark the beginning of a new year?