Since I went freelance in March I’ve been working out of my front room, which I call the Studio Lounge. It’s the room in the house I feel most at home in and despite having a guest room upstairs I could use for a studio, I prefer to be downstairs where I can create at will and still watch TV, play with the cats and keep an eye on dinner.Plus it has a fire that I love to sit by on cold evenings.

However, since I was thrust into freelance out of the blue after my teaching post was made redundant, I didn’t really have time to plan where I would create. Ricë Freeman-Zachary is a constant source of inspiration to me as far as organising your space are concerned (if you haven’t yet seen her recently redecorated Voodoo Lounge you need to!). After seeing what she did with her somewhat modest space, I’ve been wanting to revamp the Studio Lounge, but I’ve been put off by the shear amount of ‘stuff’ there is to rearrange! I never seemed to have enough places to put things, which made it virtually impossible to organise. I can’t move it all out of one room into another because there’s no room. Admittedly I do have pack rat tendencies and art supplies & books highlight this trait, but my house is also really small and, being a typical, non-refurbished English Terrace, all the doors, windows and electrical outlets are in precisely the wrong places. It’s as if someone went round and asked themselves ‘Now where can I put this door that it’ll create the most inconvenience?’

So yes, ‘procrastination has been us’ in regards to getting any semblance of order in the Studio Lounge because it’s been easier to just keep the stuff I use most within reaching distance than actually see what could be moved. However, this post of Ricë’s, motivated me to actually do something about it this weekend. Mostly because I realised that all I needed to do was just ‘get rid of stuff’.

Now, by ‘get rid of’ I don’t actually mean I’m knee-deep in supplies I don’t have a use for or anything. I don’t advocate not using the good stuff or hanging onto things ‘just in case’. I believe in buying the best and making good use of it. However, my creative space isn’t organised and has other things encroaching on it because it is transition from living room to studio. So I’ve started to re-arrange my space to make it more habitable. What I found is that moving things has a knock on effect that actually stops the task being so overwhelming.

The main ‘get rid of’ I did was moved all my reading books upstairs. I have a large bookcase in my bedroom that previously housed my clarinet, saxophone and a small pile of magazines and recently read books. But the ONLY place I read is in bed, so why were all 200+ of my books downstairs? Moving them upstairs freed up a 4ft bookcase and 2 5ft wide wall shelves. (Note: I re-arranged but didn’t tidy & clean at the same time. I have to do things in stages.)

This is my newly re-arranged ‘sofa corner’. To the left, under the window is my corner where I sit and watch TV, cuddle with The Bear (pictured) and do my art journaling while I’m watching TV. It used to be home to the black bookcase that’s now on my desk. The two wall shelves were home to all my reading books, but now house my craft books and above, my business paperwork. I use the stool as a mini-desk for my laptop and have an under-desk wheely cart with my paints and collage papers in that I can move over there when needed.

My 'sofa corner'

Once it’s tidied up this will be a nice corner to chill out in. I love my purple but intend to introduce more red into the room to warm it up, starting with a red cover for the sofa and some red and purple cushions. I will also be introducing a whole lot more fairy lights, because I like fairy lights.

On the opposite wall, my desk space now looks like this.

The desk & TV corner

Yes, she still has ‘her spot‘. But now I have somewhere to put all the stuff that had accumulated on and under my desk. The supplies bookcase now houses part of it (where my art journals and craft books previously lived) and this bookcase (formerly in my sofa corner) now houses all the supplies I use all the time. (I have a little trolly thing under the table that I use for paints and collage papers so I can wheel it about when I need to). This has freed up loads of space on my desk that I really needed, especially since I moved the A3 scanner to under the coffee table where it’s easy to get out when needed but not taking up room on my desk. It’s a little dark over there even for a goth like me, but I think a bit of paint on that bookcase would fix that. I also have space to put up my studio lights up when I need them.

If you’re curious the bit in the middle is the fireplace which looks like this. Yes I am a huge fan of Dita Von Teese. Yes, I made the collage myself.

Above the fireplace

I still need to tackle the other corner, which is where all my packaging and finished artwork is. But in all honesty, all I have to do in that corner is ‘get rid of stuff’ to the guest bedroom where it was housed before I had to cart it all off to the craft fair. Once that’s done I’ll be able to get to the supplies shelves which just need a tidy up.

That will be happening tonight so I can put up the Christmas tree tomorrow.

Don’t forget, at the time of going to print, you still have 5 hours left (until Midnight GMT tonight) to buy something from my Etsy store and get free shipping worldwide shipping and a chance to win a Rosie & Marmalade customised original. The Bear will be doing the draw tomorrow, so best get your skates on!