Home Office: Project Area Organization

May 17,2013

I’m back with another installment of my Home Office Organization series. Thanks for your patience while I caught up and got on a Friday schedule. I’m hopeful that this will stick and you can start expecting #OrganizedByFriday videos from now on. As with anything, however, I’ve learned that it’s best to stay flexible in terms of my content production expectations. On that note, I’ve decided that flexibility is my personal style of organization. You’ll notice if you watch the correlating video (shown below) that I mention moving some items that I recently organized in other areas of my Home Office into my Project Area. I don’t constantly reorganize everything in my house, but I like that I can be flexible about where and how I store things. When I’m working on a bigger project like this one in pieces it’s common for me to make little tweaks here and there as I go. Organization is a moving process and a moving progress. Finding what works best for you can take some trial and error, and sometimes your needs and desires for organization change. Since my Project Area is part of my Home Office, I like incorporating elements from both work (video production and correspondence) and play (craft supply storage) into its organization. I find it’s even more important for me to be flexible about storage with a multi-purpose space.

If you’ve seen my other posts about the working section of my Home Office, including my Filing, Desk Drawer, and Desktop Organization), you’ll already be familiar with the furniture I have in this space from the Pottery Barn Bedford Home Office Collection. My Project Area contains more from the same collection for a cohesive look. This furniture is not only beautiful, but extremely functional. The moving parts make it easy to reconfigure and reuse if ever the need or desire for change comes along.

This reorganization process included emptying my Pottery Barn Bedford Project Table of all of its contents and giving it a thorough cleaning with Mrs. Meyers Countertop Spray and some good old fashioned elbow grease. Fortunately, the Bedford office furniture is easy to keep clean and wipe down as each piece is sealed with lacquer. Even though I had put small felt protectors under the table when I purchased it almost six years ago, the piece is so solid and heavy that I couldn’t make it budge on my own. I’ve wanted to be able to move that table ever since and finally found a product to help me in that endeavor. I picked up a package of the felt reusable Magic Sliders at Target. My husband Don lifted the table up so I could place a slider under each of its four corners. They fit perfectly! The table is now easy enough for me to push around, but not so much that it slides this way and that at the slightest touch. I rotated the table a full 180˚ to mask a slight blemish that’s bothered me for years. Now I can also make slight adjustments when filming.

The Project Table consists of a tabletop resting on two 3×3 Bookcases (which are secured together by bolts) with six removable shelves on each side. I removed the middle column’s shelf from each side to accomodate extra wrapping paper storage. I repurposed two Umbra Metalla Cans that I was previously using for storage in my craft closet. These cans fit perfectly and the brown color goes nicely with the woven baskets I have in there as well.

I also reused eight brown woven baskets I purchased from Michael’s when I bought the Project Table in the four corner cubbies on each side of the table. Sadly, these baskets are no longer available, but I’ve seen many brands that produce square baskets since. I’ve loosely designated the side of the project table closest to my corner desk for work/office/extra storage items, while the other side is mainly craft supply storage. The only change I made to the bins other than switching up their contents was to add Martha Stewart Home Office with Avery Adhesive Metal Bookplates I picked up from Staples so I could easily label them.

I ended up buying only a few new things for my Project Area organization. I knew I wanted to break up some of the brown elements in the cubbyholes with a white storage option. I already had two of the Stockholm Photo Storage Boxes on hand. After discovering how nicely they fit stacked in a cubby, I made a trip to The Container Store to pick up six more for a total of four boxes on each side. I like how the built in metal bookplates coordinate nicely with the adhesive ones I bought for the brown baskets. I keep craft items (lots of glue and tape products!) in these boxes on the crafting side of the table. The other side’s boxes hold extra office supplies, my collection of iPhone cases, and my Back To MAC items.

I remember the day the Martha Stewart Crafts line launched at Michael’s. I’ve been a long time Martha Stewart Living enthusiast and love the aesthetic and functionality of her designs. I was eager to see what goodies her Crafts line would bring and was not disappointed. I purchased two of the 24×36 Martha Stewart Crafts Portable Folding Cutting Mats (now on sale at Create For Less!) to not only act as a crafting base but also as general protection for my table. Pottery Barn now offers an Acrylic Desktop Protector sized for the Project Table, but I am happy I went with the cutting mats since they serve a dual purpose and are a much more affordable option at that. Two mats side by side don’t quite cover the entire tabletop, but I don’t mind. I love the way that the grey base with white and light blue details complements my office blue wall color (which is Benjamin Moor’s Lazy Sunday if you’re curious!). I’ve had these mats for over five years now and they’re holding up nicely.

I wanted to mention the other parts of my Project Area even though I do not have any dedicated pictures to share. For my Desk Extension (located against the wall directly behind the Project Table) I pieced together several elements of the Pottery Barn Bedford Home Office Collection. I used the top from a Small Desk Set and two 2-Drawer Filing Cabinets. I was able to do this because I purchased many different Bedford components for the office and the pieces are mostly separable, making it easy to mix and match tops with bases. The Desk Extension using the small desktop fits perfectly snug up against my corner desk and ends just before the doorframe to my craft closet. I store giveaway prizes, items to mail, and my snail mail correspondence supplies in these four drawers.

I film many of my YouTube videos (particularly for TBBB) while sitting at my Project Table and receive many questions about my backsplash wall components. The beautiful wall paper organizers are also from Pottery Barn and match my other furniture and shelves in the room perfectly. You can find these Wall-Mounted Craft Organizers on the Pottery Barn website (not in stores). I hung two of them side by side to fill up an empty wall space with functional yet beautiful storage. I’ve always loved gift wrap, ribbons, and pretty gift bags and enjoy keeping these items on display in a useful way. I tend to swap out the paper seasonally. Below the wall craft organizers there are two stainless steel Mighty Magnetic Strips. Recently I’ve taken to displaying handmade cards sent to me from subscribers using clothespins I glued magnets onto. I’m thinking of either painting or covering these strips with contact paper to avoid glare when I film my videos in front of them. I’ll let you know what I do if I decide to change them up!

I go over my Project Area organization in much more detail in the video (shown below) if you’re interested in a closer look. I hope to have a dedicated blog post featuring my Craft Carousel up in the next few days. Check back next week for another post and coordinating video in my Home Office Organization Series!