Craft Room Design

Factors to Consider When Designing a Craft Room

I'm trying to design a "craft room" that will be a part of our garage.

I'm looking for some layout tips and ideas on how to set things up in a useful manner.

I am working with polymer clay, jewelry making, painting, and other messy stuff.

So far I haven't had any luck.

Can you help.

Thanks.

Cindy

Moving your crafting to a new craft room is a great opportunity to clean out your supply stash and probably rediscover some materials that will spark new creative ideas. Properly organized, your new craft room will increase your productivity and make crafting even more enjoyable.

Easy Clean Floor

First you will want an easy to clean floor surface like a durable concrete floor paint, ceramic tile or linoleum. If you stand a lot while crafting, cushioned linoleum would be best. HGTV.com has some good ideas on how to finish and decorate a concrete floor with paint.

Craft Room Furniture and Fixtures

Next consider the furniture and fixtures you need in order to optimize your work space. The largest one will probably be a large work table or desk where you can work clay, make jewelry and perhaps even do some of your painting.

Decide where this piece will go: in the center of the craft room so you can work around from all angles; or against a wall.

That given, figure out how to best light this primary work space. If no window or skylight is possible to let daylight in, consider a "natural" lighting system like OTT-LITE® TrueColor(TM).

OTT-LITE is designed to help you see the intricate details without the glare and distortion of standard lighting. Threading a needle, bending wire or creating intricate patterns, seeing the subtle differences in color and making just the right adjustments are made easier with OTT-LITE TrueColor's low heat, color-balanced illumination.

Next consider where you can install a sink for paint clean-up and the "other messy stuff" in the craft room. A utility sink doesn't cost much and would be money well spent.

Think of the steps you'll save not running back and forth to the kitchen or nearest bathroom for clean-up. Here are instructions on how to install a utility sink yourself from DIY Network.

Since you work with polymer clay, you may want to have a dedicated toaster oven and pasta machine. If so, you will need at least one kitchen-type counter: smooth and heat resistant.

Have a few drawers under the counter to hold your rolling pin and clay rollers, extruders, clay blades, etc.

[ Read our caution about toaster ovens in Liquid Sculpey Safety. ] Since some toaster ovens appear to overheat, never leave yours unattended.

Put a thermometer inside where you can frequently check for overheating. If you do observe the temperature rising significantly above the temp you set it for, pull the plug immediately. Once it has cooled, take the toaster oven and sales slip either to the store where you bought it, the manufacturer or the Consumer Products Safety Commission.

Be sure your craft room has a comfortable chair. A desk chair on wheels is ideal. You can just scoot from station to station when you need supplies or to check a work in the oven or something soaking in the sink.

You probably want to visually separate your craft room from the rest of the garage. This can be done by building a non-support wall or simply by putting in some tall shelves with solid backs. Look at some of the modular do-it-yourself office furniture at your local office supply or home center store.

Whatever wall space remains can be used for storage shelves and cabinets. If you paint on large surfaces like canvas or panels, you may want to leave an open space under the counter with vertical dividers to hold them upright.

If you keep files of design ideas or instruction booklets or other papers relating to your crafting, you'll need one or two file drawers.

Put closed cabinets in the craft room to store messy stuff like jars of paint, glue and spray cans. Leave open shelves where you want to stack things, arrange books or place labeled boxes of supplies in open sight.

Organizing All the "Stuff" in Your Craft Room

I save all of my craft magazines intact because they are so full of great ideas I want to try "someday". I don't cut out and file the articles because there are so many. Rather, I have a notebook in which I jot the magazine title and date, followed by project title(s), page(s) and a brief description of the one(s) I want to do.

My magazines are shelved by title and date; so whenever I have time to try a new project, I just skim down the list in my notebook to locate the magazine and project.

To design the rest of your storage components for your craft room, you need to analyze your materials and work habits. Think about how you craft (or ideally would craft in your newly-designed space) and list all the rest of your craft "stuff".

At the top of your list would be things you use almost every time you craft, like pencils, scissors, glue, craft knife. At the bottom would be things you use infrequently or can be easily grouped, like Christmas-related items.

The things you use every day belong right on the desk or table top in desk organizers, mugs or baskets.

I have all sorts of baskets in my craft room. Small one-handled baskets on the counter hold scissors, grommet tool, leather punch, rulers, paint brushes and crochet/knitting needles.

Larger two-handled baskets sit on the floor and hold my craft magazine collection, the various plastic and glassine bags I use for packaging and odds and ends I've collected for possible projects (like wooden cigar boxes, cedar mothballs and glow-in-the-dark stars.

[ See what I finally did with those glow-in-the-dark stars. Yay. ]

You probably already have a good storage system for your jewelry-making, but here are a few ideas that work well for me. I have a couple of rolling carts with slide out baskets to hold bead collections that came in their own divided clear plastic boxes, as well as a couple of hinged plastic boxes purchased empty to house jewelry findings. The rolling carts slide under my work table when I'm not beading.

Those plastic systems with tiny drawers designed to organize nails and screws are also very good for beading supplies and fit nicely at the back of a counter. They're also stackable.

The items that you use infrequently can be organized and stored in labeled boxes. Rubbermaid storage boxes are very convenient. Least used boxed items go on the top shelf. More frequently used boxed supplies go on lower shelves.

Here are my tips on clay storage.

Finally, you may want to reserve some wall space in the craft room for a bulletin board, calendar and/or inspirational artwork - perhaps some of your own work.