Transforming the Room of Shame
My thermometer reads 95°. I spent three hours out in the garden very early this morning to beat the heat and have gratefully retreated into air-conditioned comfort. Since outside and kitchen work feels like a physical impossibility, I have been happily at work in my craft room, formerly the Room of Shame.
As I’ve mentioned, I rent a second-floor apartment in a row house built in the late 1860s that was described as a three-bedroom. I’m not sure what kind of a bedroom they thought the one 7 x 9 foot room would be but I began using it as an office. As I renewed my interest in knitting, I began keeping yarn and knitting tools in there and, before I knew it, it had become a hodgepodge of books, paper, yarn, and unrelated furniture. I could never get it reasonably organized and dubbed it my Room of Shame.
Over the last year or two, I’ve begun to explore other fiber crafts, which meant additional materials and references and the Room of Shame became truly unmanageable. I couldn’t find anything easily and it looked like a disaster; the door was closed at all times. Add to that a trip to visit cousins and seeing big, sunny, organized craft room in their house. Nothing like envy to get the wheels turning.
I looked at several possibilities. One was an armoire that folded out into a craft table with built in storage. Be still my heart. It was nearly $3,000. Restart my heart.
Ultimately, I went with The Container Store whose Elfa system can be highly customized. If you haven’t looked at their website or visited a store, do; it’s really fantastic. Because I rent, I went with a freestanding system that doesn’t put any holes in the walls. I drove to New Jersey to see it all in person and work with one of their in-house designers to put it together. And I waited, waited, waited for their 30% year-end sale. Day #1 of the sale (clearly marked on my calendar) and in went my order. In a few weeks, 20 enormous and heavy boxes arrived, filling the downstairs and upstairs hallways. My wonderful upstairs neighbors dragged every box upstairs to my door.
I had to unload the entire Room of Shame and start with a clean slate. I had sorted through everything in the room, packed up what I was saving into boxes and got rid of the rest but, when the order arrived, I lived in a state of chaos and among towers of boxes.
After I got it all up and everything put away (and it took days to do this), I texted upstairs that it was finished and a request for pictures was received. I offered an in-person viewing and, within seconds, I heard their front door and the sound of a pair of feet coming down to see the finished product, which was pretty gratifying.
The system is very sturdy, which also means pretty heavy, and it wasn’t an easy task to get the framework up in place. The standards are seven feet tall so it took a determined effort and a fair amount of expletive hurling. Once the frame is in place, all the components hang off with a variety of hooks and fasteners. That makes it easy to switch it up, add more components, and really customize the system to your situation.
And so, I have storage, a work table, room to hang a warping board for weaving and keep my loom, which folds, out of the way. It is great not to have to pack up a project from the dining room table. I am completely happy with it and have spent quite a bit of time in there since January, happily making. And no more Room of Shame; I have a craft room.
