Designing your doll work/storage room

xD So am I! I have to tote a little step-stool around with me when I want to get things off the shelves in my closet.

Sliding doors sounds like a very neat idea! If you do do that, I'd love to see some pictures of it.

 

i used to have a tiny bedroom they are right, shelves are amazing! But i personally always ran into the issue of what was stuff i wanted on the floor vs what was stuff i wanted in a box, in a cubby or cupboard. ...so it may take like what seems a little bit but planning out the space is really, really important, mark X area in the room for (x) function because of (x) reason: like, the desk is facing the wall with the window because i want to look out, and then you can place stuff around it as necessary. but creative wall shelving units are great...if you have one in your area (or something similar) i suggest trying to find those cheap wall cubes made out of wood: they are just a square box but the best part about them is you can put things inside of them, and ontop of them, and they look nice, you can put them in designs on your wall and customize the wall area as you please rather easily.

 

I have a long strip of thin wire across one wall (wrapped around 2 nails), i hang pattern pieces, ribbons, small packaged things on it with mini clothespins from joanne's. for truly tiny things i put them in little plastic bags first, the kind from craft stores. not the most attractive setup but everything's visible, easy to rearrange and (most important for me!) easy to put back in its place!
anna-lu

 

I use a filing cabinet for my patterns etc.. and a 2 drawer one is the right height for a small side table too (for a lamp or something else) My first one I got spray painted at a auto shop.. but these days they make a lot of colours - so my current one is "off the shelf" moss green. I also had a walk in in a previous house - and I had a lot of shelves in it and used plastic tubs - all labeled for all my goodies.. easy to pick up a whole box to take to my work area too.

 

oh, goody! more good ideas...

Misuka's right about having to plan a small space. the whole house has to be planned, but this one room needs functionality. sewing table close to patterns and sew machine accessories. walk-in for my own clothes and maybe those tubs against one wall and rubbermaid wire storage thingies in the closet too.

love the wire idea, anna-lu. I can utilize space that isn't a wall or floor. maybe string over the sewing table up just high enough to be out of eyesight when I'm working but easy to reach when I'm standing up. might work better than my current practice of searching bins for the right hook or button.

Merideth, I gave away a nice 2-drawer file cabinet before the last move and I'm sorry I did! one drawer for doll patterns and one for business etc. would be perfect. well, I'll have to see what my bank account looks like after all this outlay of money! and how much floor space I have after I put in the table, chair, desk and daylight floor lamp.

I just can't get it into my head that I can do whatever I like. No Landlord!!!

 

does anyone have photos of their "hobby/doll rooms"? (ie not doll environments, but a human room that you keep mostly for dolls)

 

At the moment I'm just working on clearing a big enough area in my bedroom to accomodate my gang and their furniture. The mini bunch will get to take over my bed as soon as I evict most of my plushies. (I don't sleep there, because I need to be in the same room as my friend in case she has another stroke, or falls during the night.) Currently the mini guys have taken over the chair in my room. Except for my demon minis, they've taken over my chair in the living room! It's a good thing I don't mind sitting on the floor.
The big guys might have to join the minis on the bed, unless I can figure out a place for them where they can sit on their couches without being under foot.
Lucifer is the real problem, he needs a real room of his own just to accomodate all of his furniture and junk! In addition to his sofa and his bean bag chair, he's got that bed/dresser/closet combo thing from American Girls. That thing is huge! 0_0
Since I don't have a spare room to give him, I'm going to have to do some creative furniture rearranging in my room in order to give him a corner to call his own.
Maybe some day... in the far future, I'll be able to move my workroom to my other house, (my aunt currently lives there) and then I'll be able to give my BJD gang a whole room to call their own.
Right now I'd just be happy to have my chairs back to sit on! LOL!

 

Someday, I would love to build a to-scale room inside a room. Like, loft it, I guess. Everything in it - windows, trimming, everything- would be to scale. Then in the room around it have a workbench and oodles of shelves and all that. So, yeah, when I become a millionare, that's what I'll do XD

 

Sadly, I feel rather like Sisyphus when it comes to getting a doll room ready. The potential doll room/current craft room is cluttered, so I'll go and work for hours putting things where they belong and sorting fabric and sewing supplies into boxes, and happy with a job well done I go to take a break, only to find that my parents have spotted the clear space and dumped a butch of stuff in there to store it. (The last batch was where my sister came home from college and brought boxes of stuff, rather than clutter up her space, they went into my craft room)

The more boxes I move out, the more they move in. So I'm afraid my dolls won't have any space to their own until I move out out of house.

 

Mine have a "room" when I move their couch and chair out into the middle of the guest bedroom's floor. I don't have any space in my room to make even a corner for them.

 

I would love to see pictures of all your doll rooms or areas! I am thinking of making one for my dolls as well!

 

If I had one I would go really simple and just separate the room so everyone has their own place, and a corner for photo taking.....

Maybe a white room or really pale.....

 

I would love to even have an area for dolls, but in my current room this is impossible. I don't think I will have one in my apartment either, since that one only have one room and a kitchen and bathroom. Needless to say, it's very small.

But if I had a dollroom in an own house I'd totally go for a all-year-round kind of theme. Like if you look around you could turn from watching spring to autumn. I'd definitely have a corner for photoshoots. That corner would be white (probably in the "winter part" of the room)
If not having it like i just mentioned I would probably have it painted in light blue and with some even paler areas as if it's the sky. I like having special themes in my rooms, as you prbably hear.

But I would probably use the doll room as a workroom even if I had decided for it to be a doll room, since I like being and working around the result of my interests. Perhaps I wouldn't paint with oil nor work with clay or wood in there, but all other materials I use for being creative I'd sure have in there. xD;;

 

My room isn't very big compared to what I had in our last house, but we moved for DH's job advancement and we love it here in the country. Can actually see stars out here. Anyway my room is mostly designed so storage is below and higher up so to speak is where the dolls are. Here are a few pics.





One wall doesn't show I have a table with bins under it and on table is a huge child size couch where my SD sit

 

lol This is a great thread!!
When I move up to Chicago, my fiance and I are looking at getting a 3 bedroom apartment so that I can have a work room!! Its exciting to have a place for my dolls AND my photography...

My workroom is definitely going to be victorian inspired... Roll top desk, red velvet sofas... I actually am inheriting 100yr old red velvet sofas... so I have a start to my room already!!

 

animemom: Your room looks so clean. Nothing like mine. But i don't have anything or anywhere to store stuff, beside the cardboard boxes I got for moving... xD;;

 

I basically have one room in the house I share with My Daughter and Grands kis and greatGranddaughter,, they sort of move in and out!, so my dolly playing in on one 30x36 inch tabletop and a 5 story dollhouse for 8'' dolls..i
l LOVE to have a dollroom. But I have fun, I just change the dolsl and props a lot//

 

My fiance's mom has a doll room She has SHEVLES and SHELVES of dolls! Three walls covered! So if you are that avid a collector, maybe don't worry about a motif on the wall. She had the floor tiled to look like a hopscotch pad for the dolls to play on, so maybe something that you can have fun with like that?

 

Having so many dolls need many years of collecting, right? And it must cost a lot. I'm too cheap to even think of buying outfits for the doll I'm saving up for.
But it's true that if you have that amount of dolls, you won't need to think about the walls.

 

Such a nice thread!
I hope I could have a specific space just for my BJDs someday. I mentally planned it to have white trim and pastel walls with with matching white washed furniture and it would have plenty of light to take pictures!

Would this subject of posting your BJD workspace/room should be created for a picture request?