Workspace Wednesday - Into the Closet

Wow, you all really liked my plastic drawer makeover I shared last week! My blog stats hit an all time high for page views on a single post. I'm afraid I don't have anything as exciting to share with todays Workspace Wednesday post, but hopefully you'll still like what you see, and possibly pick up an idea to use in your stampin' space.

Today I am showing you the BEFORE & AFTER of the 3rd wall of my room. This is just a very small wall because it is shared by both the doorway to the room as well the closet. Before, I had my TV on top of a large Sauder cabinet. Inside I stored mostly alterable items, retired holiday stamps & retired card stock. It was functional, but as you can see from my BEFORE photo, it was way too large for the space. (In my defense, I always kept the doors to this cabinet closed so you didn't normally see my mess inside)

BEFORE

AFTER

As you can see, now I am using 3 of the Jetmax storage cubes to hold the TV. This is a temporary fix until I find something that works better. (Or maybe get a flat screen to mount on wall!;-)  Even though the TV is small, it's so old that it's really heavy and I'm not too sure that these units can support the weight long term. Do I see another trip to IKEA in my future? The cabinet I had there previously is now in the closet...more on that in a minute.

First, I wanted to show you one of the drawers from the 4 drawer unit. I saw this good tip on Pinterest...use Altoid tins to organize small things that normally get thrown into the "junk drawer". Please tell me I'm not the only one who has a junk drawer?

This has been working out really well for me. I labeled each tin and I can easily find all sorts of little things that previously took up way too much space on my peg board or were just thrown in a drawer. I already had the tins because I was saving them to alter. (along with a BUNCH of other tins!) So at least now they are put to good use.

Here's a look at the right side of my closet...both before & after.

BEFORE

AFTER

I put my plastic 12 x 12 paper storage shelves inside. This holds most of my current 12 x12 card stock and DSP along with some scrapbook pages that are finished or in progress. I no longer have to worry about dust or fading from the sunlight. Here's another look.

In the before shot of my closet above, you can see I was storing my stamp sets on DVD/CD shelving units. A couple of those were able to stay on the back wall of the closet, while the larger units were moved to the main room on the wall behind my desk. I store all my sentiment/word stamps (including retired) on one, directly behind where I sit so they are within easy reach. The rest of my retired stamp collection is now stored in this large oak filing cabinet. ($5 garage sale find) which now sits on the other side of the closet. Check it out...

The two drawers hold a LOT of stamps! Plus I have room in the top drawer for my retired 8-1/2 x 11 card stock as well. This file cabinet is so sturdy that I was able to put my other paper rack right on top of it. This makes it so much easier to see what I have because it is all at eye level...so much better than when it was sitting on the floor.
Before, this 2 drawer cabinet had been sitting behind my desk and I had it cram packed with stuff I didn't even know I had! Here's a reminder of how it looked before.

I think you'll agree that it is much more useful now! So far I've been doing good as far as putting everything back in its place when I'm done, so hopefully my drawers won't look like the above again!
I hate to leave you with the ugly image above, so here's something cute to look at...

Thanks for joining me on my tour!