creative | BulgingButtons

So yesterday I started a new quilt project, which felt awesome. Until I looked around.

Every flat surface in my house has stuff on it. Every. Single. One. And I’m not just talking about the normal stuff, either. Oh sure, the kitchen table has place-mats and salt and pepper shakers, but it also has magazines and pencils.

Mine isn’t quite this bad.

The dining room table has gifts from students, the coffee table has magazines, notebooks, pencils, and gift cards. The bathroom counter has movie ticket stubs and receipts. And my desk-slash-sewing table? I don’t even want to talk about it. Frankly, it’s just TOO MUCH.

So today I’ve started cleaning up, in earnest. I decided that I would tackle one surface at a time, starting with the kitchen counters. So far, so good.

Last year when my former house was on the market, it was immaculate. There was not one thing out of place, ever. I loved it. Truthfully it wasn’t even all that difficult to maintain, but getting it that way wasn’t easy.

We’ve been in this house since the end of last summer. By the end of this summer I want it to be immaculate too. That means finding permanent homes for things that have been just sort of hanging around, or letting them go. It also means a serious closet clean-out, since I have piles of clothes that I don’t wear and probably never will again. Sigh.

Still, I’m making progress. It feels good to fill up the recycle bin with junk mail and magazines, and seeing the shiny granite that was hiding under all the clutter makes me smile. I feel calmer, happier, and more creative when I’m not surrounded by too much stuff. Next mission: the coffee table. Wish me luck.

I’m sitting here in my office/studio/craft room (I haven’t settled on one name for it yet) surrounded by boxes waiting to be unpacked, and cursing the people who have posted all those amazing office/studio/craft room pictures on Pinterest. I have the room, I have the furniture, and I have the stuff, but I don’t have the office/studio/craft room of my dreams. I don’t even have one worthy of a photo. At least not yet.

I had an idea in my head of what my space would ultimately look like, but as I’m sitting in it, the reality of my environment is slowly sinking in. It’s not Tiffany Blue. It doesn’t have a hardwood floor. There is no chandelier. There are no built in cabinets. None of the furniture is white. In fact, it looks a lot less like Pinterest and a lot more like a cluttered suburban bedroom with a desk stuck in the middle. Go figure.

More or less my fantasy studio

The funny part about it is that the desk isn’t really even a desk. It’s a table, and it used to be my kitchen table. It’s from IKEA and it’s not terribly fancy, but it’s a great size, and it gets the job done. Add in two matching floating shelves for my flying pig collection and family photos, my four double cube units for quilting fabric, and my two big bookcases, and you might think I would be golden. You would be wrong.

I also have a set of matching IKEA drawers and a small Closetmaid nine cube unit. The fabric cubes and the big bookcases are brown, everything else is black. The walls and carpet are beige. Not a dull, ugly beige, but a modern pretty beige. Still, beige is beige. Stunning, right?

I can’t have a chandelier, I need my ceiling fan, and frankly it’s new and it looks pretty good. I won’t be getting hardwood flooring. I live in a super-dry climate and wood doesn’t do that well. Besides, the carpet is new. The paint job is new too, so Tiffany Blue will have to run its course in other people’s homes. I do love it, but will I next year? Beige is forever, people. Looking around, it occurs to me that I actually sort of like my space. I have my books, my fabric, my pigs, my computer, and my sewing machine. I have room to work, and if I’m in the middle of a mess I can shut the door and nobody has to know. I more than like my space, I’m growing to love it.

No, there are no cute decals on the wall about home and family and living and laughing and loving. And no, I don’t have color coordinated bins for my supplies or a chevron printed office chair, but I have space. I have space to think and plan and create and design and write and sew and dream and wonder. I have space to display the things that inspire me and space to store the tools I need to help me turn those inspirations into finished products. My room may not be Pinterest worthy, but I do love it here. Now if I could only get the rest of those infernal boxes unpacked…