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Post by meridon on Feb 15, 2016 15:52:12 GMT
*UPDATE* We put in an offer on that house with the basement scrap space, but ours was the 2nd highest of 5 offers they got, so we were outbid. We are now under contract on a different house that has a formal dining room, so it will become the scrap space/art room. So I get to keep my natural light and a decent sized space! I will need to purge some and I have long range plans to have a custom table built or build one myself very similar to this one: craft table Going with that style of table will mean I can get rid of the table & chairs and the old kitchen island that I've been using as my work surfaces, so that will free up some additional space in the room. Inspections are scheduled for next week, so fingers crossed that this deal goes through! If there are no major surprises, we should close in time to move over Spring Break! I won't bore you with the details, but long story short, after only 2 years in what I thought would be my "forever" house with a HUGE scrap space in my dalyight/walkout basement, we're looking at moving again. Our local schools have gone through some rezoning that we are not happy about at all, so we are strongly considering moving across town to a different school district. However, those homes are much more expensive, so the houses we are considering are much smaller and I'd likely have to give up my scrap space and go back to just having a corner of the kids' play room or working out of a closet. Or, we saw a house yesterday that had a space that would work, but it's a little nook in the basement with zero natural light and I wonder if I'd actually use it. Has anybody else done this? I'm sure someone has...how did you make it work? Should I just ditch everything and work exclusively from kits? Gah! I am so stressed about this and I think my realtor is a little annoyed that I keep insisting that I need space for my hobby. Love her, but she's not a crafter at all and doesn't seem to get that having a good scrap/craft space is more important to me than a fancy kitchen or master bath. That's not really the point..I'm just venting. I really need scaling down advice more than realtor advice. She is really awesome. |
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Post by QueSeraSera on Feb 15, 2016 16:04:52 GMT
Before you move can you look at getting an exception for your children to attend a different school in your district? Not sure if that's an option in your area, but in our school district this is allowed. It's not well known that this is an option because the school board is cautious about it being abused, but it's an option. I hate moving so if do anything to avoid moving. Especially downsizing if there are still kids at home. Best of luck whatever you decide!
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Post by mikklynn on Feb 15, 2016 16:09:49 GMT
I needed the guest room for our grandchildren, so I moved to one end of the LR. I have a table set up behind the sofa. I purchased a pretty armoire to hold all my paper. I store some of my Iris cases of embellishments in the basement and run down to grab them as needed. It's not a big problem...I don't need every theme right at hand. I just go grab the birthday box if I am scrapping a birthday layout, for example.
You can do it. AND your realtor needs to understand this is a real need for you. It is NOT frivolous.
You could also use a DR as your space. I overflow into my DR with my Cricut. I only have to clean off the DR table about twice per year.
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Post by meridon on Feb 15, 2016 16:13:45 GMT
Before you move can you look at getting an exception for your children to attend a different school in your district? Not sure if that's an option in your area, but in our school district this is allowed. It's not well known that this is an option because the school board is cautious about it being abused, but it's an option. I hate moving so if do anything to avoid moving. Especially downsizing if there are still kids at home. Best of luck whatever you decide! That's basically what we are doing. My DH is employed by the district, so we can move them to our preferred school based on that but it's 35-40 minutes from where we currently live. We don't *have* to move, but it would just be a lot easier to be closer because I worry that we wouldn't be as involved if we had to drive so far to go to events at the school. We would rent out our current house and look to buy something closer. Fortunately, we aren't in a rush, so it could be we just stay where we are for now and wait for something we love to maybe come on the market, but I know I'll have to compromise on space if we move as this other area is just much more expensive. |
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Post by lisacharlotte on Feb 15, 2016 17:36:02 GMT
I would take the playroom. I guess I grew up with no playroom, that's what our bedrooms were for. If there are too many toys for the bedroom, I would think "there are too many toys", not "I need another room for more toys." But that's me. YMMV
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PaperAngel
Drama Llama
Posts: 7,312
Jun 27, 2014 23:04:06 GMT
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Post by PaperAngel on Feb 15, 2016 19:22:33 GMT
First, the purpose of a realtor is to find a home that meets your needs. If s/he is visibly "annoyed" with you &/or your criteria, then I would immediately drop him/her & engage the services of an agent capable of performing his/her job. Second, my dedicated space is more than a scraproom; it's my refuge from the testosterone.  Therefore, I suggest repurposing a defined space that you can call your own & where you can escape & craft. A friend's home had two large walk-in-closets in the master bedroom. After she purged & donated clothes & accessories that no longer fit or reflect their styles, everything could be stored comfortably into one closet. She claimed the other as her hobby space, using the existing built-in system to hold her sewing supplies & adding an oversized chair where she can read or sew. Simply removing her supplies & the chair would allow her to convert the space back into a closet, if necessary. Third, best wishes with finding a new school, house, & your creative haven! |
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Post by alissa103 on Feb 15, 2016 19:58:59 GMT
I've done it! We moved to a much more expensive city and picked the best schools to boot, driving up our home price. I lost my HUGE (over the 2 car garage) bonus room scrap room that I had in our previous house when we downsized here. I now how have the tiniest bedroom in the house and honestly, I like it better.my stash is more me, everything is within reach and it's much more efficient. I majorly downsized my stash. No more holding on to blank mini books when I hadn't made a mini in 7-8 years. Tossed dried out paints, sold stamps I don't use (not really a stamper), etc. I sold an armoire I had used for storage and a tv (I now just watch stuff on my iPad, but I'm also considering getting a wall mounted small tv in there). I also paid container store to redo my closet in there, to my specific needs and wants. I can fit a ton of my supplies in that itty bitty thing, bc its floor to ceiling shelving and drawers now. Worth every penny and it was the saving grace to my move bc it holds most of my stash. If you won't have a dedicated space, consider a walk-in closet, a corner in a larger master bedroom, the dining room or playroom. I have been in almost all of those scenarios in other houses and they will work just fine! remember to think vertical and make use of wall space going up if you're going to be in a nook, corner or closet. That's my best advice. Purge before you move and as you're putting stuff away after the move too and you'll see... you can make it work. If you're on the fence about purging, you can always put some things in "cold storage" in the attic or basement for a bit to see if you miss them. I also agree that if your realtor doesn't get your needs, it's not really her job to gloss over it. Her job is to listen to your needs. Simple fact is, it's what YOU need in a house and you're the one buying it. Who cares what her needs/ideas are! She's not living there  Good luck! |
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Post by meridon on Feb 15, 2016 20:02:15 GMT
Yep, I'm open to ideas about repurposing a space. I've never been one to worry about what a space is "supposed to be" based on a floorplan and am all about making a house work for what you need. In the past, my scrap space has been in a formal dining room or a spare bedroom. In one house we saw yesterday, there was a decent sized laundry room and a sunroom that both would be options, but I worry about humidity and if it would be way too hot in the summer, although I could add an a/c unit, I suppose.
I do need to just reiterate to our realtor about this being an integral space for our family--I have 3 kids who all love to arts and crafts, so it's not just "my" space, it's "our" art room. And I guess I do also need to have a heart to heart with the kids about that if we move, we will likely have to get rid of a lot of their toys and use a "playroom" as the "art room". I didn't mean for my original post to make it sound like my realtor isn't doing her job--seriously she's great to work with and is doing what she can to get us in our preferred neighborhood given our very tight budget.
Since we are looking at keeping our existing house as a rental, we have a very strict limit on what we've been approved for and we'll likely have to do quite a bit of work to whatever we buy to be able to afford that part of town at all. Real estate is just all about tradeoffs since there's no such thing as a perfect house. I'm sure she is just much more used to clients who turn up their noses at a house based on the kitchen or baths rather than not having a hobby space whereas I'm more concerned with square footage and am not bothered about harvest gold appliances or a brown bathtub because I know I could change those things over time.
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Post by danimakesgood on Feb 15, 2016 22:19:02 GMT
We live in a smallerish home, it is three bedroom, under 1200 sq feet, with two kids. We share the biggest bedroom as the "hobby/school" (we homeschool) room. Right now, it's also my children's play space, but as soon as my husband is finished remodeling one of the other two bedrooms, that will be their room and their toys will go in there. We have to keep a strict limit on toys and supplies of all kinds. All my supplies live on or under my table, and I take advantage of wall space as well. My husband's fly tying supplies don't take up too much room, but it's all under and on his table. My children's school and art supplies have one bookcase and then they continue up the wall, on shelves. I actually like it better this way, as it keeps us together, even if we're all working on different things. I feel much more relaxed about creating, not having so much stuff. I enjoy the smaller house a lot just for the fact that we just can't accumulate a lot of stuff! Less to clean, less to manage, less to look at, haha. Plus, I love an organized home and an uncluttered one. Not having space for too much stuff really relaxes me. Right now I'm in the middle of a bit of reorganization. My daughter's birthday added some new games/puzzles and art supplies to our mix. So I'm cleaning up and out. I'm also trying to come up with ideas for my own stuff that hasn't been easy to organize. Page protector storage still stumps me...  |
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Post by kellyv on Feb 16, 2016 3:57:50 GMT
i have never had a HUGE space but now i have even less but i love it more than ever. i did have half of an office in the house we lived in up until a year ago and now, even though our home is larger, i seriously downsized and now all of my crafty supplies related to paper crafts fit into a closet (including my desk) and another closet holds my sewing table. the thing i love most is that all i need to do is close the closet doors and the mess is gone. it is like magic! anyway, i am sure you will find the way that works for you…for me it was all about getting rid of the extra by deciding what i was actually going to joyfully use. i had a lot of extra stuff that was simply taking up space but paring it all down has made me much happier and more creative to boot!
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msliz
Drama Llama
The Procrastinator
Posts: 6,419
Jun 26, 2014 21:32:34 GMT
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Post by msliz on Feb 16, 2016 4:28:02 GMT
For several years, I scrapped in my dining room. I had a closed cabinet for some of my things and I took some space in a hall closet for the rest. I kept a big quilting mat behind my china hutch and took it out to use for my work surface. I like having a dedicated space now, but it worked just fine too.
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Chinagirl828
Drama Llama
Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 6,469
Jun 28, 2014 6:28:53 GMT
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Post by Chinagirl828 on Feb 16, 2016 8:54:01 GMT
Page protector storage still stumps me... I keep all my page protectors in a 3 ring binder. I keep all sizes and types in there with the smallest at the front going through to the largest, including all the different pocket page configurations. The album holds a lot since there is nothing in them and I can just flip through to find the style I want to use. |
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Post by mikklynn on Feb 16, 2016 16:58:08 GMT
Page protector storage still stumps me... Mine are stored in an Iris case. I have cardboard between the different styles, so I can easily lift the cardboard to find what I need. I put the basic 12x12 protectors on top, since I use those most often. |
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dawnnikol
Prolific Pea
'A life without books is a life not lived.' Jay Kristoff
Posts: 7,876
Sept 21, 2015 18:39:25 GMT
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Post by dawnnikol on Feb 16, 2016 17:09:50 GMT
I've moved 3 times in the past 6 years and purging is the only way. You have to be cut throat. Do you love this item? No, give it away/sell it. None of the "oh, I might use it" or "someday..". Cut. Throat. It also helps moving forward (after you've done the purge) to only buy what you really love. I know a lot of us get caught up in the "fear of missing out" or "have to have the whole collection", but seriously? You don't. It might also mean changing things up a bit with how you store things / deciding what works for you. I'm very visual and I need to see things to use it, so I have lots of little jars mounted on my wall and on my spin storage to help with that. Tell your Realtor to deal with it, their judgment is not needed nor required. I used to work with a ton of realtors and they only cared about their commission. Suck it up, Buttercup, do your job and find your client the house they want, not the one you think they should have. Good luck!! |
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amom23
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,329 
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Post by amom23 on Feb 16, 2016 17:25:42 GMT
Page protector storage still stumps me... I keep all my page protectors in a 3 ring binder. I keep all sizes and types in there with the smallest at the front going through to the largest, including all the different pocket page configurations. The album holds a lot since there is nothing in them and I can just flip through to find the style I want to use. This is what I do too. It works so great! |
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Post by shutterbug2sue on Feb 16, 2016 17:26:12 GMT
Page protector storage still stumps me... I keep all my page protectors in a 3 ring binder. I keep all sizes and types in there with the smallest at the front going through to the largest, including all the different pocket page configurations. The album holds a lot since there is nothing in them and I can just flip through to find the style I want to use. This is a great solution.
Mine are stored in an Iris case. I have cardboard between the different styles, so I can easily lift the cardboard to find what I need. I put the basic 12x12 protectors on top, since I use those most often.
As is this one.... |
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scrappington
Pearl Clutcher
in Canada
Posts: 3,139
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Post by scrappington on Feb 16, 2016 17:44:53 GMT
I don't scrap in my scraproom. I never have doesn't matter how big my space is there for can you just house your stuff down there and work somewhere else.
Also get very organized. Its amazing how much stuff you can store or have if its done right.
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Post by anniefb on Feb 16, 2016 19:39:12 GMT
I keep all my page protectors in a 3 ring binder. I keep all sizes and types in there with the smallest at the front going through to the largest, including all the different pocket page configurations. The album holds a lot since there is nothing in them and I can just flip through to find the style I want to use. This is what I do too. It works so great! I do a similar thing - with a selection of page protectors in the album I'm currently working on. The rest are in a drawer. |
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Post by meridon on Feb 16, 2016 22:40:32 GMT
Page protector storage still stumps me... I keep all my page protectors in a 3 ring binder. I keep all sizes and types in there with the smallest at the front going through to the largest, including all the different pocket page configurations. The album holds a lot since there is nothing in them and I can just flip through to find the style I want to use. I do this also. All of them are in a 3 ring binder sorted by size. |
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Post by 950nancy on Feb 17, 2016 1:51:42 GMT
Page protector storage still stumps me... I keep all my page protectors in a 3 ring binder. I keep all sizes and types in there with the smallest at the front going through to the largest, including all the different pocket page configurations. The album holds a lot since there is nothing in them and I can just flip through to find the style I want to use. I do this too. I have four-three the ringed binders that hold the 12 x 12, the PL, the We R Memory Keepers, and the various sizes. |
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Post by 950nancy on Feb 17, 2016 1:52:51 GMT
We added an extra bedroom onto the house so my boys could have their own space. I have an 11 x 12 foot bedroom but often scrap in the kitchen to really spread out.
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scrapaddie
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,090
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Post by scrapaddie on Feb 17, 2016 6:05:41 GMT
So what happens when you move and the school district rezobed again? My scrap room is in the basement with no natural light. I don't have to worry about my paper being bleached by sunlight and I have some of the best lights in there so the room is nice and bright while I work. I love my scrap room
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Post by chrispeas on Feb 17, 2016 14:51:35 GMT
I would panic if I had to move! I've been in my space for 16 years. That's a lot of time for my stash to grow. Sometimes I wish I still scrapped out of my XL rolling tote.
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Post by danimakesgood on Feb 22, 2016 19:29:33 GMT
I keep all my page protectors in a 3 ring binder. I keep all sizes and types in there with the smallest at the front going through to the largest, including all the different pocket page configurations. The album holds a lot since there is nothing in them and I can just flip through to find the style I want to use. This is a great solution.
Mine are stored in an Iris case. I have cardboard between the different styles, so I can easily lift the cardboard to find what I need. I put the basic 12x12 protectors on top, since I use those most often.
As is this one.... Both great ideas! Thank you! |
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Post by meridon on Feb 25, 2016 2:56:13 GMT
Update added to OP. We are under contract on a new house and I still get my own space. Yay!!!!
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Post by LavenderLayoutLady on Feb 25, 2016 11:30:04 GMT
*UPDATE* We put in an offer on that house with the basement scrap space, but ours was the 2nd highest of 5 offers they got, so we were outbid. We are now under contract on a different house that has a formal dining room, so it will become the scrap space/art room. So I get to keep my natural light and a decent sized space! I will need to purge some and I have long range plans to have a custom table built or build one myself very similar to this one: craft table Going with that style of table will mean I can get rid of the table & chairs and the old kitchen island that I've been using as my work surfaces, so that will free up some additional space in the room. Inspections are scheduled for next week, so fingers crossed that this deal goes through! If there are no major surprises, we should close in time to move over Spring Break!  Sounds awesome! |
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Post by mikklynn on Feb 25, 2016 14:02:57 GMT
Oh, yay! I am so glad you are going to have a place for yourself |
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Therefore, I suggest repurposing a defined space that you can call your own & where you can escape & craft. A friend's home had two large walk-in-closets in the master bedroom. After she purged & donated clothes & accessories that no longer fit or reflect their styles, everything could be stored comfortably into one closet. She claimed the other as her hobby space, using the existing built-in system to hold her sewing supplies & adding an oversized chair where she can read or sew. Simply removing her supplies & the chair would allow her to convert the space back into a closet, if necessary. 
