Ouches and Organising

I have discovered that working on my scrapping at a table surrounded by shoe boxes full of supplies all around and on the floor is a ticket to shoulder and neck pain. So I'm going to have to get my craft room organised and get a higher table that I can stand at as I work.

We (my husband and I) are going to start by painting the room my favourite shade of lilac. Then my husband is going to build the modular shelf system that I devised so that I can add shelves and cubbies as my stash grows. I will post pictures of the before and after. The process itself will be chronicled on my website A DIY Home.

One problem that occurred to me was whether to paint or stain the 14"x28" cubbies that we're going to build. I wanted to paint them white so that any paints or papers will show as their true colours, but I didn't want to have scraped and chipped paint from where I was pulling things out to use them. And then the fates handed me a miracle. We often shop at the Habitat for Humanity Re-Stores, where they sell products left over from construction, and anything that was donated that wasn't usable to them. Someone had donated two pallets, five feet high, stacked with spray cans of car paint enamel. This is one of the most durable paints you can buy and very expensive (my husband and I used to do body work on cars to make extra money, so we've bought quite a bit of car paint in our time).

The problem was that each can was made for the paint for a specific make and model of car. So, while they ad plenty of white (most of then at the bottom of the pile), there were at least eight different shades of white, with the car make and model listed on the front. We spent quite a while with my husband shifting boxes while I found eighteen can of white that matched. Well, ten matched and the other eight match each other and the two colours are very close.

Since car paint is super chip-resistant, these shelves should look good for a long time.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go open my new boxes of craft supplies.