Hi peas! I wanted to share some thoughts with you today about how I make storage work in my scrap room on a very tiny budget and with a little elbow grease.
There's a lot of factors that went into my current scrap room and it's storage. One, there's just no extra money floating around for scrap room furniture. Two, I live in Canada which means no Target (until Spring -- yay!) Three, my closest Ikea's 8 hours away (until this fall when there'll be one only an hour away -- yay!). Four, ordering online and shipping to Canada is crazy. Five, I'm cheap. Sigh. If I can make it myself I will (try).
So, here's a peek into my room with a focus on thrift store finds and a little creativity when it comes to furnishings.
(For backstory, we live on the family farm in a 130 year old farmhouse. The yard is full of outbuilldings and discarded treasures.)
This is the newest addition to my scrap space. Can you guess what it is?
It's a cutlery drawer from the old kitchen cabinets that used to be in this house. A little thinking outside the box and it makes the perfect washi storage.
Now, here's a bird's eye view of the wall in my room that holds most of my scrapping supplies.
Let's see if I can break it down for you. It's a great example of using thrift store and found items in your space.
On the left is a blue wooden shelf. I don't remember where I found it, but it's perfect for cardstock. Above that is a shelf that I screwed together. We had an old bench that was falling apart and we were cleaning it up. I was wanting some shallow storage for my mists so I cut the boards, nailed them together and came up with this. $0. Can't beat that.
The large unit in the middle is made from two pieces. The bottom half is a section of the upper cabinets that used to be in our kitchen. The top half is another shelf unit that I stacked on top of the bottom one. Up until a month ago it was a two shelf piece. But I was drooling over a postal sorter mailbox and decided to make my own instead. Mostly because I didn't want to ship such a large piece across the border and I'm impatient. I cut two old closet doors from the house that we were storing in an outbuilding (the thin kind from the 70's) and placed them so I now had four shelves. Then I cut some other pieces of wood left over from a previous project for the cubbies. A coat of white paint and I have my own cubby unit. Cheap and perfect for this space.
To the right of this I have two shelves that are from a store that closed it's doors a few years ago. The bottom one has mail slots that are perfect for thickers.
Within all these pieces I coral my items with wire baskets and containers from thrift stores. Little bread pans fit in the cubbies perfectly.
Some other storage solutions along that wall include a metal toolbox I use to store my adhesive as well as metal buckets...
... and some glass cookie jars I use to hold loose chipboard.
I was lucky to find these at the thrift store for $2. I later saw them at an antique store for $30, so I was glad I grabbed them. I still need to replace the knob of the large one with something a little more fun. :)
Now, if you turn around you'll be facing my work table. Let's take a peek at that.
Believe it or not, pretty much that entire table is made up of doors. We had two old doors.... one made up the back and the other got cut in half for the sides. We used this as a kitchen island before we renovated, and now it lives here. The shelves in it are also doors... from the same group of doors that went into making the cubby. Honestly, if it takes more than a saw and a drill I won't tackle it. But this was doable.
The top narrow shelf is a recent addition. I wanted somewhere to put the trays I use for current pages/projects.
I had space for one more tray on that shelf but didn't have one... so I added a drawer pull to a wooden box and now I do.
Don't be afraid to use objects for something other than what they were intended for. The metal file drawers make great ink storage.
For paper storage I had large boxed built so that file folders would fit in them. I added casters and some more drawer pulls and voila. Perfect.
So, I hope I've left you with some inspiration for repurposing items and tweaking found furniture to make your room work for you. It may not be something you'd see in a magazine, but it definately improved the function of my space.
