Inspired by a digresson in this thread.
I do all kinds of crafts, a few of them professionally. Because I am also an incurable collector of craft supplies, it was necessary to buy a house that had storage and work space available for all that stuff. So currently…
I have a spare bedroom claimed as my studio space. It’s about 10X12, and has a closet with sliding doors. It also has two loverly windows, one that looks over the patio and pool, and one that looks over the creek and woods that run behind our house.
I have one entire wall of the studio set up for storage: three of those little cardboard “dresser” type storage boxes with drawers - they are full of ribbon, feathers, and gift-wrapping stuff. Above that are wall mounted shelves which house cute little tins, boxes and jars full of supplies, as well as two hardware-sorting cabinets (the kind with the gazillion little drawers) full of jewelry findings and wire, and a couple dozen of those fishing tackle/embroidery floss boxes full of beads. Next to that set-up is a plant stand with three shelves - my clay processor is kept there, as well as boxes and tins full of paintable wooden thingies, and the top shelf has jars and cups with pastels, markers, paintbrushes, crochet hooks, colored pencils and chalks. There’s a stack of plastic drawers next to that, with shallow drawers that have my scrapbooking papers sorted by color family. Next to THAT is an endtable that has storage underneath - old magazines go in it, and my convection oven (for polymer clay) is on top of it. Finally, there is a wicker and metal thingie with three deep drawers full of clay (oh, and my acrylic paints are in metal file boxes on top of that.)
There are shadowboxes mounted on the walls here and there, and they contain rubber stamps, embossing powders, little jars full of buttons or brads or eyelets and other small stuff. My papercutter, several rulers and yardsticks, and my light table are hanging off nails in the wall (along with my tambourine. Don’t ask.)
The closet contains a bunch of underbed storage boxes full of fabric, my sewing machine and a small shelving unit that holds my soapmaking supplies and some other miscellany like spray paint cans, fiberfill, fabric paints and glass paints.
In the middle of the room is my worktable and four chairs, which is my old kitchen set reclaimed - it’s a 1940’s chrome and formica set. My pasta machine is anchored to one corner of that, and there are tins full of small supplies on one end (scissors, drawing pencils, a tape measure, etc.) And under the table is an old suitcase that is full of embroidery hoops, cross stitch books and evenweave cloth.
It is a REALLY crowded room.
The GOOD NEWS is, this is now officially my temporary studio! My brother is framing out a 14X17 room in our basment for me, and it will have a sink in it! AND I’ll be able to bring in my bigger tools - bench grinder, drill press, bandsaw, and eventually a small kiln. There is no natural light in the basement, so he has designed a wall that contains light panels - they’ll be framed out just like windows, but have frosted glass panels with lights behind them. Plus he is putting in loads of electrical outlets and task lighting in the ceiling.
So…do you carve out a little niche at the kitchen table, share space in a family room, have a shed out back, craft in the basement, have a workshop in the garage, rent space somewhere else…? And how do you store all your crafting goodies? If you could build your own perfect studio, what would it be like?