Which type of person are you: clutter or anti-clutter?

I need some of each. I like my living space to have interesting personal things in it, but in general I’m happier with little clutter. Too much clutter and pattern in my living space tends to stress me out.

Throw this all out the window when it comes to creative spaces. Many of us, whether in the yarn business for work or as a hobby, have claimed a room in the house as our own craft room. For work I need this. And I need this space to be very cluttered- needles in view, a bulletin board full of random inspirations, needle gauges, notes, business cards. I want to see all my books. See them on a shelf. Gardening books. Art books. (Art books used to be my luxury purchase in college since I didn’t have the properly shaped feet to support a shoe habit.) Knitting books. My swift and ball winder need a permanent home ready to be used on a whim.

I don’t need to see all my yarn, class samples, and finished knits. I know, what’s wrong with me? So those are in cabinets behind closed doors.

Now a year-and-a-half ago we moved across the country to a house 1/3 the size of our Michigan home. Major purge. But the house did have a room for me to eventually claim as my own. With all three kids out of the house grown up working or in college, I finally got to claim my silver lining to our newly emptied nest. A week ago I painted and started moving in. It’s feeling great. I’m only half done, half-organized, but I am getting there.  I may share pictures here when ready.

In the meantime I leave my handy friends with one great tip. This project has involved a trip (okay, two trips) to Ikea and lots of assembly and affixing things to walls. Partway in, when I realized I don’t have to power I used to have to hold that drill firmly when pushing screws into studs in the wall, I reached for the bar soap. Each screw gets a little roll in the soap before gliding into the wall like buttah!