They’re the best!
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Bonus: no shelves to dust…lol…
I guess you could wrap the boards in contact paper for protection…
I like the option of hooking things on to wire sheves too. If a surface is needed for containers you just put something flat onto the wire part.
This craft cabinet thing has a good variety of shelf depths for various supplies. I wouldn’t want the fold up version but I like the organization.
Even though I can be quite messy, I find chaos upsetting so further down that thread is a photo of my shelves with baskets on them. I hide the mess in a consistent looking front. I have Kallax cubes in the sewing room too, they are great for so many things. If I find time this summer I’ll finish reassembling that room & take photos.
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Here’s one wall of my creative space. I’m in the process of rearranging a few things. The toaster oven sits on a large tile.
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That cabinet is great if you have a dual use space or limited room…it wouldn’t work for me because I like to see everything. I also have things in baskets and bins to keep things organized. It is nice because I can grab a basket and carry it to whatever workspace I need. I have a project basket and gather my supplies and materials into it. When I am done, I can put everything back easily as well.
I also have to clean up after every project…I am messy while processing but to move on, I have to clean up–including vacuuming, dusting, cleaning the surfaces, etc. It helps to clear my mind.
That folding cabinet close up is 3 feet deep, who has the room?
Knowing all of us, unless we were on vacation(or camping. 
), it would never be closed anyway…why pay for that?
I don’t have a dedicated craft room, more of a house with every room pulling double duty either for specific crafting spaces or craft storage.
For my main craft storage, I took over 2 full sized closets in our bedroom and put in adjustable wire shelving (the kind mentioned above that hangs from the wall) and I love them! I think I have them spaced about 11-12” apart, just tall enough to fit these large plastic bins. I put index cards inside the front with the contents so I can easily find what I’m looking for. The bottom shelves are 16” deep and the top are 12” which I find is perfect for the plastic bins. I’m planning to reorganize this a bit today after sending off some supplies in Use It or Lose It.
The other closet holds all of my crochet yarn, some weaving supplies, and my weaving yarns which I don’t want exposed to light (tencel and linen live here, cotton weaving yarns are in open bookshelves close to my big loom). This configuration has drawers which I love but think they probably take up more space than needed.
I’ve recently been building out a small craft station in my dining room for paper crafting. For this I have a cube shelf and rolling cart from IKEA, some shelves on the wall about 7” deep, and I just got a hanging mail organizer to attach to the wall to hold in progress papers. On the top shelf I recently got some wire letter trays which make grabbing things more easy.
Fabric mostly lives in large plastic tubs on a Billy bookcase from IKEA but since the bookcase isn’t deep enough they need to be turned sideways which uses up a ton of space. I think the Kallax cubes from IKEA or metal shelving would work a lot better for fabric storage but they don’t fit in the space I have.
For me I’m finding the most important thing is I need to be able to quickly see what I have and access it. So lots of shelves with individual bins instead of stacked bins, open storage when it makes sense, and heavy use of dividers (magazine holders, letter tray, etc) on larger shelves where bins don’t make sense.
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I think everyone here has sort of found solutions over time that work for them and their space…we are an adaptable bunch, and even if it means dragging a bin to the dining room table, we are going to craft!
I just bought that same cart in your last picture for my husband to use as a working cooking cart in our kitchen. He was tired of dragging out the oils, spices and sauces he needed to do his Asian cooking. He wheels it over to the stove, cooks, cleans and then moves it out of the way in front of the shelving/pantry.
I think one of the key things is to have those who live with us know that we are going to craft/cook/play music, so find room and the styles that work for you!
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Some great food for thought here. @marionberries what to said was very freeing, that every system will break down at some stage. It means it doesn’t have to be perfect, it has to work for now. Given that I am a craft magpie, my interests will definitely change over time.
@AIMR your experience with cardboard is really interesting. I know people use common board, but most of my stash that I had planned to put on boards is >2m so I would need bigger boards. I had planned to recycle cardboard. But it seems that would be a bad idea. A lot of my fabric gets stored for years.
@photojenn index cards in the front of transparent boxes is genius, because stickers often unstick.
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corrugated plastic is good alternative - you can get it in neutral colors
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When you go to the shops, they are using a grey cardboard…maybe their stock moves too fast and they have better storage and ventilation…I also store fabrics for years so I imagine, like in paper projects, cardboard has acids that will leech. My silks are stored using acid free tissues and layered in an acid free box.
I use poster board to cut out white pieces in front of my plastic bins to keep light out and to be able to read the printed label made with my label machine.
I think the solution is to use up the fabric faster! lol
And yes, I have gone through many, many, reiterations of “organizing” depending on my space, my current interests, etc. We are also adaptable and change is good!
Maybe you can get in good with a local shop and see if they throw out their fabric boards…I know I picked up a few to hold interfacing and lining !
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Do you have any small shops that you love how they do/display things? Maybe you could pop in and chat about what they do for similar products. For me, the yarn is the thing so that has a dedicated glass front cabinet (to keep dust out) not very deep (I only do a single layer deep of yarn so I can see all the colors easily.)
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I think a big thing with shelving is it’s very dependant on your personal preference for storing individual items.
I like bookcases (12 inch depth or greater) for organizing because of the shelf width and the versatility of what you can put on individual shelves. Cube organizers are just a little too divided for me. You can always use cube bins or something to make a wider bookshelf more divided, but you can’t un-divide a cube organizer.
My preferred storage bin also fits on bookshelves. I mainly use the Sterilite ID latch bins. I like them because the come in three depths but the footprint of them is all the same so they can stack on each other. So you can make stacks on the floor if that works with your space situation. It’s not very aesthetically pleasing, but if it works it works.
This is some of my scout troop supplies in those storage bins stacked against a wall between a bookcase and a bed in a spare bedroom.
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For the narrower Alex drawers, IKEA sells these cardboard inserts you can use to subdivide them. They’re perfect for keeping small stuff organized in the drawers next to my sewing machines.
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@photojenn @AIMR i have two raskog trolleys with all of my go to supplies on it. Apart from a cup of flair pens, I prefer the majority of my desk top to be clear, as I have a wide variety of crafting interests. I just reach over and drag the trolley to me and push it away when I’m done… I love it!
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