Just FYI…we bought a vacuum cleaner that has adjustable suction power for these rugs. Our other vacuums were too strong and would suck up the rugs! It is cordless and is great for quick clean ups. It is also an upright and very lightweight.
In the kitchen, I have used a wet clean cloth to wipe up spills. It has held up well!
I have looked and have been tempted by Ruggable. The only other person I knew who had one said no matter how they laid it down, it looked cheap, but it sounds like from what both you and @AIMR have said that hasn’t been the case. Maybe it was just the design she had? I should look again after the holiday.
Question about the 8x10: are you washing it in a front loader? We have a full size and have put the set in a stackable configuration. I wonder if the weight of a larger rug will make the stack wobble a lot or if the rug would be so wadded that it wouldn’t clean well in a front loader (so much less water).
We have a top load washer. The weight of the rug top is equivelant to a large regular load of laundry for us. (Much smaller and less bulky than washing our King size bed quilt.) While our washer isn’t stacked, washing the ‘heavy rug’ didn’t seem to unbalance it at all. Though the washer was bought in 2016, and is pretty advanced. It self-settles the laundry, to try to avoid it becoming over balanced. I don’t know how the newer one-piece rugs are in comparison (weight wise).
I remember feeling like the rug looked odd when we got it. Unusual, because you expect rugs to have a nap, and this one is smooth. So your brain is saying “Did I just buy a patterned drop cloth?” But living with it for a week and I was SOLD. The softness of the texture under foot is really nice. Sometimes when I’m watching tv at night, I pull my feet out of my slippers, and just run my toes over the rug to feel how soft it is.
Yeah, I also felt that way when I first got ours! Your brain is used to a rug having nap and cut yarns, etc. It took a while to get used to it, but they feel so good on the feet in comparison to a cold or hard floor!
I do think the designs make a big difference as well.
Surprising no one, my art studio is getting packed and I’m forever looking for ways to optimize the space. Does anyone have a good solution for the bottom shelf of their art cart? The bottom shelf seems like prime real estate since it’s next to me when I’m painting but I’ve never found a good way to make them anything other than long term storage.
Snacks? First-aid?
This is almost embarrassing, but I’m surprisingly not. My craft room is a disaster. Not just like, Oh this is a little messy, but a literal dumping ground. I haven’t used it properly in years now. If I’ve needed something I’d rummage around like a squirrel and then whatever supplies would just get thrown back in.
Between grad school, working, and kids, crafting has fallen to the wayside (except cross stitching!) Making everyone’s Christmas gifts has kinda brought me back into a crafting mood and I might do more crafting for gift giving this year.
Soooo…prepare your eyes (and your crafty soul) to witness this disaster:
But I spent 50 minutes last night and have made the teeny dent …
My goal is to get it semi cleaned then actually dig into the areas and do a hard purge. Here’s my question to multi-craft crafters: How do you decide what to keep? There are many crafts I won’t do for years then I get back into it again. I’m thinking of asking myself “If I were getting back into this craft right now, what would I actually use/need?”
I got two really large bins that I store items that I don’t use regularly but might want to do for a swap or whatever. I put things like wooden birdhouses, styrofoam balls, etc. in there and have an excel spreadsheet of what bin # and the item. I can search easily if I need that supply. One might not ever need a purse shaped box, but maybe!
I divided my crafting room into the things I do the most: sewing, needlework, yarn, and paint
I use my table for all the crafting from cutting to painting, so my sewing machines are on different tables.
When I moved, I also asked myself if I would ever get back into jewelry making. I decided no, that was not my passion. But, I kept beads, wires, tools and findings for things like prayer flags, bunting, etc. I usually buy beads now as I need them.
It is difficult to get rid of things because a lot of my crafting crosses over. Quilting scraps might become notecards and notecards might become houses or be painted on, etc.
I would say that a crafting room evolves and you have to adapt it to whatever your current interest might be. Also, as I get older, I sure don’t want to do some of the crafts because they take too long or are too messy.
That’s some visible progress in only 50 minutes! And a room with good bones, so to say. Spacious, no odd angles or impractical nooks and crannies, practical furniture and layout. You can see it was a nice, well-thought out craft space originally.
Personally, I’m a multi-crafting, although I suppose heavily leaning towards fiber / textile. Some years I’m more into garment sewing, other years I do more cross stitch, etc. My space is limited so I make sure my stash is limited (which means, I don’t buy ‘for stash’, I buy what I need for specific projects). That doesn’t mean I have no stash at all, there’s the inherited / gifted stuff, leftovers/scraps, UFOs and WIPs, projects that don’t work out, and obviously the tools for each craft. But I don’t get rid of things because it’s not my craft that year.
I have gotten rid of some things because I felt I was never going to do them again. If any supply doesn’t spark joy for you, it’s time to let it go. I think that’s a similar approach to your question - if you are getting back into, say, crochet, right now, would you really use the amigurimi supplies? Or did these end up in a drawer somewhere because you never actually enjoyed amigurimi in the first place? That’s a sign to get rid of them.
From a different perspective, are there supplies that you own that someone else could really use? For example a charity or school? Say you’ve got a die cutting machine that you might want to use again years from now, but has been gathering dust for a while, and you know a preschool teacher who would really get a lot of use out of it, you could let it go and pass it on as an act of kindness.
Last one, is there anything that you haven’t touched in a long time, but is worth some money? In that case it might be worth considering listing it for sale. If you are ever going to get into that craft again, you can always buy it again, but maybe that moment never comes. In the mean time, you’ve got more space and more money.
Thank you both! This is some really good advice! And yes, I’m very fortunate to have a good sized space. And lots of storage! It’s a whole quadrant of our unfinished basement. (With foam puzzle flooring! lol. Which keeps it quite warm for the feet.)
I think the advice both of you had for what to keep/get rid of is really helpful. I’m in the brainstorming phase of proposing a craft swap event for a library program so I also have that in mind. (Fingers crossed management goes for it!
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So true! And usually when there’s a craft you always want to buy a new supply or whatever.
I will keep you guys updated! Hopefully it’ll keep me accountable. I plan on organizing in very small time chunks. It’s definitely a more-than-a-day project. Lol
That’s some great progress in a short period of time. The half of a small bedroom I have carved out for my craft space looks like a bomb went off in it. I have so much mending I need to do on my sewing machine, but I can’t reach it at the moment. Seeing your progress has inspired me to get back at the organizing soon.
I had almost finished organizing my space … then I went to make stuff. Now it’s a mess again. My room is quite small so when I pull out some stuff to start working, fabric for cutting or something, it instantly looks messy.
I need to move my heavy bookcase about two inches to the left for a much more efficient layout, but I keep postponing it because I have t9 empty it out completely to move it…
Yes, that is my situation too. Even when I have my area tidy and somewhat organized, I have to pull out several things to reach what I need. I just have more stuff than I have space. This is why I’m working on destashing my supplies. I’m hoping that eventually I will just have my crafting tools, and that I will get supplies as I need them.
Another consideration for what to keep is “will it ‘spoil’ before I think I’ll come back to this?” No one wants to get some painty mojo only to discover it is a block of unusable gunk.
And the classic “would I buy this today in a shop” question.
When I am in the zone, I make a total mess. I mean, I just pile up stuff all around me. I hate the putting back part of crafting, but I also can’t work on a project unless I start with a fairly clean slate.
I am really bad about just shoving everything into a box or bin and getting to it later…I have quite a few boxes of stuff that probably go back a few years of stuff that never made it back into their proper space. It’s also the reason I have multiples of things like scissors, rulers, etc. I am getting better at it, but doubt that I will change anytime soon.
Currently on my desk: embroidery thread, hoop, pattern, PT exercises, battery tester, glue stick, highlighter, Sharpie, stamps torn off envelopes, security envelopes, stapler, seam ripper, binder clip, cookbook, yarn samples…I just keep pushing stuff to one side to work on my owl embroidery.
You made a big dent in under an hour! I have been taking hard looks are my multi-craft stash and made some decisions about what types I could give up and still be totally satisfied creatively. A lot of the jewelry/bead stuff is going to go, I’ll keep some basics for miniatures and dioramas. I have one project left before I purge it and I am hoping to get it done before the end of the year.
Another thing I did was more about prevention: I decided to focus on getting better at or diving deeper into the crafts I love most instead to taking on new ones. JoAnn closing is going to help me stop accumulating and force me to shop my stash even harder than before - I may even get into letting the stash determine the project. GASP!
There is satisfaction in shopping your stash. Limiting choices can lead to increased creativity. And sometimes happy surprises. Where I have to order stuff is usually needed yardage for quilt backs, or an item I simply don’t have that is necessary.
I acoided the Joann closeouts just so I wouldn’t impulse buy. I’ve done enough of that in the past. The one time I went in, they were pretty picked over.
What I find hard is finding that thing I know I have, and can’t locate. Imbot very good at categories. And a spreadsheet for tracking things is just too much busy work for me. I would never keep it up.
I’ve been trying to just clean up after each project… just put things away. I’m getting better, until I don’t. 
I no longer keep up with fabric and yarn stash. I just sort of rummage through the bins until I find what I want. And, as you said, sometimes finding things I forgot about in my own stash and forcing myself to look there first, makes for much more satisfying makes!
I do use my excel spreadsheet for all the odd little supplies because I don’t use them enough to try to remember where they are. I sort of know but it saves me time if I can go right to the bin. I have odd supplies like mica chips, chenille sticks, mirrored disks, tiny magnets, bells, witch cauldron, etc. It would take me a while and some heavy lifting to find the right bin in the basement. I just type a search and once I use it, I delete it and put it on a shopping list if I plan on using more (never has happened!).
So, while this discussion was going on, I knew I had three small birdhouses on stands somewhere…yes, I found them and plan on making them into glitter houses. I probably won’t buy them again. 
So. When I finished the library, TheMisterT moved his WFH office in there. That means I had to move my craft lab/studio into the guest room where he used to work. It was not at all easy to work in there as is, so I started planning. The plan has evolved a lot in a few months and has led to a plan to move the guest room to the library in the form of a cabinet bed - similar to a murphy or wall bad, but the mattress folds into a cabinet similar to a slightly bulkier sideboard. Upside, we’ll be increasing the size of the mattress from full to queen.
Step one was to remove this kind of weird built-in shelving unit that was here when we moved in. It has been filled with books before the bookcase was finished, so I hadn’t bothered to repaint the wall within the shelves.
I can’t even tell you all the ways that this thing was poorly attached to the walls and ceiling. I had shored it up a few years ago, but still… it’s a mystery and a conundrum that it has stayed up for probably at least 2 decades with lots of weight and through at least a few earthquakes. Anyway, I got it down in one piece with TheMisterT there at the end to ease it down to the floor.
There are 5 colors of paint where it used to hang! Three of them mine.
For some reason, I thought I would try to sell this to someone at a low price just to let it have more life, but as I was planning how we were going to get it safely off the wall to the floor, I realized there was no way it was going to get down the stairs in one piece! D’oh! I have taken off the top and am planning to remove the center shelf tomorrow to move it in those-sized chunks.
Logically, this would be made of pine. It’s for sure a softwood, it has grain and knot patterns of pine, but the color is not at all right for pine that had been sealed only with oil and maybe only once. I’ve got in my mind that it’s cedar, even though that doesn’t make sense. That said, not much else about it makes sense at all, either!
I have picked out a new paint color and hope to pick it up on Monday when I’m in town. I hope I can find leftover ceiling paint to just touch that up. I still love the dark grey ceiling.
I discovered a 6th color of paint! Also mine. I also got the shelving disassembled enough to get it out of the room. In doing so, I had to cut one board and the scent that was released was… cedar. So for some reason, these interior, built-in shelves were made from cedar. 
I will be able to use it for some exterior projects.
After cleaning, filling holes and sanding all the “seams” where the different layers of paint joined, I found the leftover ceiling paint and got a coat on the ceiling. I hand sanded and it was not enough to not show, but… I kind of don’t care. Based on where it’s located (right on the edge, between two entrances and I almost always use flat/matte paint I’ve decided that after a few days I won’t notice. Same for the wall which will have a large Ikea Expedit on it.
Tomorrow, I plan to pick up new wall paint! EEP!
