This challenge has been devised to help us all get our craft spaces organised and sorted. It is an individual challenge. Because I'm based in the UK and living on an extremely low budget, I've tried to set this up so that a) I'm spending little, if no money and b) the things I do buy or have bought are available most places in the UK. Ikea is over an hour's drive from me, so I'll only get stuff from there if I can not get it (or something similar elsewhere). Most of my suggestions are about repurposing and reusing.
And I cannot emphasise how much these are all suggestions. If you don't like an idea, or think you have a better one, please feel free to post it as a comment.
I'll also be working through the exercises a month ahead of you, so if you have any questions, please feel free to ask them in a comment and I'll answer as best as I can.
So here's my challenge for March:
Size up what you've got.
You'll need:
A piece of paper
Some cardboard scraps (the small sides of cereal boxes are ideal)
Some clear plastic or transparencies
Permanent pen
Sticky tape
Measuring tape
Scissors or knife, cutting mat and ruler
Eraser
Calculator
1. Measure your space. No matter how big or small the space is you've got to create in, you need to know how big it is. Let's face it, unless you remodel your house (which goes against the low-budget philosophy of this challenge), it's not going to get any bigger. And, you may want to reduce the amount of space you're taking up at the moment, so it will be useful to know exactly how big this space is. Be accurate in your measurements. I've done mine in millimetres.
2. Draw your space to scale on a piece of paper. You can determine what that scale is, but it is important that you remember what the scale is. Mark on your drawing where windows and doors are and any fitted things that can't be removed (fireplaces, fixed shelves, etc) or won't be removed (like benches and cupboards). Don't forget to mark if the doors and windows open inwards or outwards and where the latches are. You'll need to plan the placement of your furniture so that you can still open windows. As you'll see on my drawing, I've drawn in some of my benches, but I'm open to the suggestion that at least one of the benches might need to be removed, so I've drawn the fixed ones plain but left out the one that might be coming out. Make a few copies.
3. Measure every single piece of furniture you have, or plan to have. You need to measure the obvious things like width and depth, but I also want you to measure height and floor clearance. Measure how much door or drawer clearance each piece of furniture needs. For example, if you have a 60cm wide cabinet, you'll need 60 cm in front of it to open the door. Try to allow at least a metre clearance for your chair/s.
4. Draw the width and depth outlines to scale (the same scale as your room drawing) in cardboard and cut out (you can cover the cardboard in white paper before starting so that you have a writable surface). I've made mine out of mount board scraps so that they're robust. Mark on each piece the height and the floor clearance. In my case, I've also drawn the piece of the bench that I'm open to moving so that I can see if I can use it somewhere else. I've also draw the shapes of some wire cubes that I have in the house that I might be using.
5. Draw out the door/drawer clearance allowance on the clear plastic or transparency, cut out and stick to the shape it corresponds with.
6. Lay your furniture cut outs on one of your room plans as things currently stand. Draw around the cut outs. You now have a picture of what your room looks like from above. Over a cup of coffee write down what works and what doesn't. For example, I've found that my computer desk just becomes a dumping ground for things as I walk in the door. I therefore need to think about either correcting my bad habits when I use my studio (unlikely) or find another way of coping with my habit - ie create a drop zone. But I like that I have most things to hand near my craft desk just by wheeling around. At the moment everything is in boxes so I have to move four or five things just to find one item. That isn't working for me at all. I've also just been given the base cabinets from a friends kitchen. Do I have enough or too many for this space?
7. Ok, it is important to not rush the next step. Take your time and get it right. Place the pieces of furniture on another room drawing and move them around and adjust them. Pay attention to how the clearance allowances impact on each other. They're done in clear so that you can see where they'll clash, but that might be okay. The metre allowance behind your desk is essential. Anything less and you'll find it very cramped. Another important thing to remember is that you should allow between 1 and 1.5 metres in any passage ways as fire exits. This is essential if you ever plan to have guests in your craft space.
8. Once you're happy with the placement of your furniture, draw around each piece and annotate what it is (don't forget height and floor clearance). The advantage of this is that you can take your other copies and try out different layouts. As you get something that works, draw the outlines and annotations and then compare against your previous drawings. Which one works best for you? It may help to draw in the width of passage ways as well. Once you have your plan you can put the cardboard shapes and the original measurements and room drawing into an envelope and keep for future changes. Yes, you will probably go through this again in the future because our spaces are constantly changing and evolving. But hopefully, we'll get it right for the moment so that you're not having to change it again soon.
We're going to work to achieving this floor plan. But, you might find as we go through the rest of this challenge, that your floor plan has to change. That's okay. Put the plan somewhere safe so that you don't lose it.
Here is a video showing how I worked through these steps and how my floor plan evolved.
And here are the floor plans as referenced in the video so you can see them up close.
