Pegboard is UP!

This morning, Shera, my awesome professional organizer, came over and helped me hang the pegboards that I painted last week.

The thing with pegboard is you have to put furring strips behind it so that it sticks out from the wall a bit, leaving space for you to put little pegboard hanging gadgets into the peg holes.

The window wall was pretty easy. We (as in, Shera) hung the furring strips on both sides of the window.


Guess what? You need a stud finder and a level and DRYWALL screws! Who'd a thunk it?

(Not me. Just another reason why Shera is so awesome!)

The other wall was a little weird because the people who built this house got very—uhm—creative. Finding studs was sort of a joke here. In another room, they'd hot glued very thin furring strips to the cement wall, then hot glued the wallboard to the furring strips.

Yep.

On this wall, it seemed like maybe they'd used plywood behind the wall. But whatever they did, Shera was able to make it work.

Shera getting ready to attach the pegboard to the furring strips.

And ta-da! Here is the window wall:

And the other wall:

If you want to do this, just google "how to hang pegboard" and you can find a zillion instructions.

Next up: hanging vertical storage on the pegboards and moving in the furniture.

Peg-Boardage is Awesome!

Shera, my awesome professional organizer, suggested I do vertical storage in the Craft Room. So I looked at a LOT of different ways to do that and decided to go with the pegboard system because:

1. it's in my budget
   
   and
   
   
2. it's cute

On Wednesday, Burrito (my awesome grandson & errand buddy) and I ran errands all over the place collecting supplies for the pegboard vertical storage sytem.

We found some awesomely cute wall stickers in pink, green and blue at the Dollar Store.


I fell in love with those colors and decided they absolutely MUST be the theme of my room.

Burrito fell in love with a helicopter.

Then we went to Home Depot. I got white pegboard, pre-cut in 24x48" pieces for only $6.70 each.

I got three.

I also got 1" furring strips which came in 8 ft lengths for less than $1 each. I got three and had the HD boys cut them in half for me (they do it for free), which gave me six 48" furring strips.

After that, we went to the bank, and the post office, and Target, and Bed, Bath & Beyond. When we got back home, I asked Burrito if he wanted to help me start building stuff.

He said, "No thank you, Grandma."

So this morning, I painted the pegboards:
I used the Rust-Oleum Ultra Cover 2x Coverage spray paint in Key Lime, Spa Blue and Berry Pink.

I love the pink and blue. The green is a bit too yellow (and not an exact match to either the stickers or the paint cap), but it's close enough that I can live with it.

Next step, hanging the pegboard on the walls...

Craft Room — Painted

The Craft/Hobby Room is painted. The room is still pretty dark because I don't have the new light installed yet, so it's hard to see. But if you happen to make out any drips or spots or whatever, just know that...

I DID THAT ON PURPOSE!

I used the Glidden Brilliance Collection, 2 in 1 Paint + Primer in Crisp Linen White, from Wal-Mart.


Here's the window wall:


And here's the wall directly across from the window. The entire top half of this wall is corkboard. I just painted right over it.



And here's the corkboard wall with my shelves in place. This will be my Gift Cupboard, where I will store wedding gifts, baby gifts, and gifts for other miscellaneous occasions.

Having a Gift Cupboard allows me to shop sales and stock up on items when they fit my budget. And when I get an invite to a party, I can quickly grab a gift and go. No stress, no worries.

I had these shelves from the UB business so I can't tell you where to get them, but they're plastic and light weight. I think you can find them, or something similar, at most home stores (Home Depot, Lowe's, etc.) They actually come with two more tiers, but I wanted a lower shelf so I can use the corkboard.

The thing I love about these shelves? They are pretty easy to take apart and set up, as evidenced by the fact that...

I DID IT MYSELF!

Craft Room — Step 1

I got started on my downstairs project today. Because of how I'm moving stuff around, I have to do little room first, then green room, and last, the shipping room.

The history of this little room is: junk room, bedroom, closet/dressing room, bedroom, junk room, bedroom, UB room. Who knows what it will be the next time I get a bee in my bonnet, but for now, it will be my play jewelry-making Craft Room.

I moved out most of the UB stuff last weekend, so all I had to do today was:

1) Move out the UB trash, the shelves that belong to someone else,
tax records, and gift wrap...

(See that blue tape on the wall? Shera—my awesome professional organizer put that there. It says "Work Table" to remind me what goes there. I had to pull the tape down, but I can still remember what to put where because I drew a map.)

2) Move out my shelves, the jewelry-making supplies , scrapbook stuff,
and the odd boa or two.

It took me about an hour to empty the room and tape it off.

The faux wood paneling makes this room way too dark. I can't see in the dark, so I need to lighten it up.

Because I'm painting over paneling, there are some issues that I don't usually have to worry about when I paint a room. For example, I had to sand the gloss off the walls first so the paint would adhere better. I also had to use a primer.


I'll need to do two coats of paint and I didn't want to add that third layer and more time to the job by priming separately, so I decided to go with the Glidden Brilliance Collection, 2 in 1 Paint + Primer — which I got at Wal-Mart early this morning.

And let me tell you, the paint guy at my local Wal-Mart is NOT a morning person!

I chose the semi-gloss interior latex because the semi-gloss reflects more light than the satin, and the latex is much easier to clean.

I wanted white, because white reflects the most light, but did you know there are like a bajillion shades of white paint? I picked Crisp Linen White, because even though it's bright white, it's a little softer. Plus it has more of a warm, pinky-creamy tone, rather than a gray or blue tone. (But it's not nearly as pink as it looks on the computer screen. It really is a nice bright white.)

So here I am, ready to kick some painting bootie!

(I keep several low self-esteem outfits on hand,
specifically for home make-over projects.)

First, I sanded the walls.

I told DH that I was getting him a BLACK & DECKER MS2000 Complete Sanding Kit for Father's Day. But since I needed to use it today, he'll actually just get the empty box wrapped up real pretty.

(That's sort of rude, so maybe I'll get him a Gift Card to his favorite restaurant, like Olive Garden. I could die for their Five Cheese Ziti al Forno. And DH loves the... uhm... wait. He really doesn't love Olive Garden.)

(Oh, well. I'm sure I'll think of something.)

I like this sander because it's small and fits in my hand easily; it has several attachments for detail work; and it's ORANGE. And it worked great.

See? See the sanded walls?
See how much work I did?

Sanding took about an hour to do—including reading the sander instructions and figuring out how to work it.

And then I painted the first coat. That took about two hours.

The Glidden went on really nice and thick. I liked it. But I'll still need a second coat.

One of Glidden's selling points was that this paint was low-odor.

Guess again.

It smelled like that thick, white gluey paste from elementary school. Personally, I think I like regular paint smell better.

Here is the room with the first coat of paint:

It has to dry four hours between coats, so I'll be doing the second coat on Monday.

Then I have to figure out how to hang the new light fixture...

Shipping Room

Yes, even though Urban Botanic will be gone as of June 4th, I will still need a shipping room.

Why?

Because I'm a publisher—and even though 99.9% of my future publications will be digital or print-on-demand, I still have a storage unit filled with hard copy books I need to sell.

[And, no, I'm not distributing for other people anymore. That was not fun for me—and I'm old enough now that I'm all about the fun because, face it, I may not have that much more time left. Relatively speaking, I mean.]

This will be the last of the three rooms I tackle (the yellow one here) because I have to move my curriculum resource books and my favorite fiction books off the built-in shelves where they now reside and get them settled into their new home in THE LIBRARY!

(Yes, I'm giggling!)

Then I have to do a major SORT & PURGE.

And like THE LIBRARY!, this room will cost me NO MONEY to do! Just lots of elbow grease and some slave labor. (*cough*Chris*cough*)

I will post some before and afters of all three of these rooms when I start the work, which will be right after June 4th's big UB Yard Sale.

Belle won't be jealous, but...

I have a big room in my basement. (The green one here.)

Over the years, this room has been used as a junk room, play room, offices for Rosehaven, Professional Pre-Press, Urban Botanic, CustomScentsOnline, and half a dozen other businesses that I've started and closed.

This is the room that depressed me so much when I moved Rosehaven back home from the warehouse that I went to Home Depot and bought the happiest color paint I could find:

Apple Green

That color still makes me smile when I walk into the room.


Right now, though, it's crammed full of UB stuff, boxes, and miscellaneous junk.

That does not make me smile.



BUT. I'm turning it into a LIBRARY!!!

Yes!

My own private, personal dream library.

Okay, it's not going to make Belle jealous...


but it certainly makes me giggle with glee every time I think about it.



Okay, so here's the plan...
To Do List:

• Move out all the Urban Botanic shelves and product
  
  
• SORT & PURGE all the boxes and stacks of crud all over the floor
  
  
• Move bookcases from garage down to room
  
  
• Move Favorite books from Shipping Room to Library
  
  
• Move curriculum resource books from Shipping Room to Library
  
  
• Decide what to put in the file cabinets (might move them out and add more bookcases...)
  
  
• Decide what to do with desk (definitely keeping it, but not sure what I'll use it for.) (Personal perfume making, perhaps...)
  
  
• Make a book inventory
  
  

And the best part of the Library plan is—it's absolutely FREE! It won't cost me a penny!!!

Craft Room

I'm calling this my Craft Room, for lack of a better label. (The pink square here.)

It's also my "Hide the Presents from the Grandbabies" room, the "Jewelry Making Kit Storage" room, the "Paper Scrapbooking" room, the "Gift Wrap" room, and the "All-Purpose Miscellaneous Creative Crap" room.



It needs some work. Right now it has a lot of left over Urban Botanic stuff in it, but that will all be gone next weekend.

Hopefully, I will make enough $$ at the UB Yard Sale to do the following:

This is the plan:

• Paint walls white
  
  
• Brighter ceiling light
  
  
• Add table/floor lamps
  
  
• Use vertical storage to create a “store” of craft supplies to shop from

A. Gift Closet

• Build floor to ceiling shelves
  
  
• Put Christmas gifts in tubs
  
  
• Easy slide out storage

B. File Cabinet

• File cabinet to hold idea books and patterns (2 drawer?)
  
  
• Space above cabinet??

B & C. Wall

• Create vertical storage for scrapbook paper & supplies

D. Wall

• Create vertical storage for craft and gift wrap supplies
  
  
• If no studs, attach furring strips to front of paneling to build out studs for vert storage; decorative
  
  
• IKEA $2 curtain rods to create wrap paper hangers on wall above table
  
  
• Hang scissors, etc.
  
  
• Store bows & ribbon

E. Wall

• 2 tier plastic shelving
  
  
• Corkboard—Idea board; make it pretty

Estimated cost: $200?

Getting in the Zone

Shera—my awesome professional organizer—came over yesterday and we zoned three rooms downstairs.

This was the original big picture back in 2009.

Things have changed.

For example, Urban Botanic is no more after June 4th's big UB Yard Sale. So...

Here is the new big picture:

We zoned the three colored areas.

Zoning means, we looked at the space available and my current needs and interests and determined what will go in which space.

We didn't actually do the work yet—but we made the plan.

And it felt so liberating!

I am totally excited about putting this plan into action. Details for each of the rooms coming soon...

Pig Shelf!

Shera, my lovely personal organizer, came by today and look what we did!


And when I say "we", I mean she did all the work to hang the shelf and I watched.

I also offered helpful comments like, "Hey, that's a cool electric thingee you got there. It puts those screws right into those studs like butter!" and "Wow! Stud finder? It would probably go berserk if my DH came home right now."

After hanging the shelf, I showed her all the progress I'd made the past two weeks since her last visit. She said lots of really nice encouraging things to me—and even clapped at appropriate intervals.

I like her very much.

Grab & Go Project Organizers

My working office is teensy. Some would even say, claustrophobic. I would say claustrophobic! There are days when I go in there and feel like I can't even breathe.

Maybe it's not quite as bad as this woman's office

---------->

but it's pretty tight and squinchy.

I loved my office at the Rosehaven warehouse. It was the perfect size with lots of space and bookcases and filing cabinets and a lovely assistant to straighten everything up for me and... *sigh*


The challenge of a small office is finding a place to put all the things you need to have handy when you work.

One of my challenges is having a place for my projects-in-progress materials. I used to use a rolling cart and plastic sleeves but there's no place to put the rolling cart except in the closet—and that sort of defeats the "have everything handy" rule.

Shera Hawkes, my lovely personal organizer, had a great idea: Office Project Boxes! Each project has it's own box.

I looked at several variations of this idea and the ones I settled on were the Iris 3 Case Table Chest and the Iris 3 Case SLIM Table Chest. I found them at Office Max. I had to go in to the store because they weren't shown on their website.

What I really like about these:

• they fit nicely on the shelves over my desk
  
  
• clear—I can see what's in them
  
  
• plastic—I can use labels on them (I love my label maker)
  
  
• snap tight latches (they really do snap tight; don't pop open when you drop them) (I know this for a fact; I tested)
  
  
• grooved handle for easy carrying
  
  
• they are like little briefcases so I can grab and go if I need to work at a client site

AND

• they come with a shelf sleeve so you can EASILY slide them out and back into the same spot; you don't have to stack them directly on top of each other, which means, when you take one out, the rest of them don't fall down on your head.

Here they are in use, in my office!