A new elephant to chomp!

image from Clipart Library

Well not exactly a new elephant, more an old one revisited 😏  Last June my craft room was in a terrible mess but by August I had managed to tame the chaos.  Fast forward a year and chaos was once again reigning supreme *sigh*  Lovely Lyndi helped me to make some Big Decisions last year about what to keep and what to sell or donate.

We also knew that we wanted a cupboard of some sort in the newly-finished porch, so I suggested to Adrian that we could use the rather nice pine one from the craft room.  It had previously been in the dining room of our old house but we didn't need it indoors when we moved here.  So moving that out created even more upheaval in the craft room!

Unfortunately, with one thing or another, I didn't actually get round to working through the sell or donate pile and "stuff" started to pile up once again.  Before I knew it, I was back to square one and feeling even more dispirited than I had done last year 😔 

Lyndi had helped me to rearrange the furniture in the craft room last year and although it was better than it had previously been, I was still somewhat dissatisfied with the layout.  Some of the problem lay in the fact that the workbench, although lovely and sturdy, is nigh-on impossible to clamp anything to as the top doesn't project far enough over the supporting struts beneath.  I thought that if I could replace it with something more suitable, it would make an admirable platform to display some of my dolls' houses, with space beneath for storage crates.

I had been mulling over possible solutions for quite some time, taking lots of measurements of both the space available and the furniture I already had to slot into said space.  In the end I found these two work tables to replace the old bench, which Adrian and I shuffled round to a different position to become a dolls' house display/storage area.  As you can see, the new work tables don't match but unfortunately I didn't have enough space to fit in two of the larger ones.  I wanted to make as much use of the space as possible, hence the two different tables.  I have since bought some oilcloth to cover them both, so hopefully the difference in size will be less noticeable although to be honest it doesn't really matter to me.  I also bought some oilcloth to cover the old bench, in a plain grey design that sort of resembles concrete, to make a better looking base for the houses that will be displayed on it. 

This, I'm afraid, is the mess I've left myself with yet again...

It's amazing, really, just how much chaos one woman can create 😳

It was really tricky to get through the door, let alone walk around in the room itself!

In the end, I had to give myself a good talking to and just tackle it one little section at a time ~ you know, eating that elephant 😉

The sideboard, that it just about visible next to the bookcase, used to be tucked into the corner to the left.  I moved the crates that used to be here to stand beside the old work bench, as you can see in the photo further up the page.

We have various items to donate to Restart, and I have made a start selling some bits and pieces on our local Facebook marketplace.  The green and white striped container has a blanket project in it that I'd forgotten I'd started 😏 I've brought it indoors now to join the queue behind the other projects I currently have on the go 😉  

As you can see, I have a number of dolls' house projects waiting to be started 😄

I decided last year that I would let my vintage doll collection go, so they are still in crates waiting for me to list them on Ebay.  

I shall probably rearrange the stuff on the bookshelves at some point, but Gervaise, Jolly Molly, and Gloria will stay where they are.  They like to see what's going on in the craft room and supervise my antics 😊