Clean-up, Fix-up Challenge

Sharyl of Sharyl's Jewelry had recently gone through what every serious artist must go (some more often, some less): having to clean the mess in her studio. Nobody likes to clean alone, so she had this brilliant idea of inviting everybody to join her in the 'Studio spring cleaning' (where 'spring' is a term loosely defined as 'the season that should follow winter and theoretically starts in about 3 weeks'... which term definitely doesn't apply to where I live, as we haven't seen the face of the driveway since November; currently it is fully covered by about 3"-4" of ice).

Hence this challenge / blog hop where we are supposed to clean our studio.

Now... this is something I've loathed for a while now and I've brought tools and projects downstairs as needed (on a project-by-project basis), piling everything up in the attic like this:

Obviously I couldn't work in there - I couldn't even step properly! All I was doing is go in, search for what I need, and leave more mess on the floor, on the chairs, everywhere...

Last evening, after finishing everything else that had absolutely had to be done, around 10:00 pm I decided to tackle at least some areas, went up, took the picture above and proceeded to put things in their places.

It's far from perfect, but an hour and a half later I obtained this:

At least now I have some place to put my foot :) The next steps (I wish Sharyl will keep this going for a month or so) are:

• try to get all the supplies organized - this is going to be something to tackle... 
• get that desk out and put in my proper table: hubby got it for my birthday last year, maybe this year we'll manage to install it (it's the lovely Harbor Freight Tools solid wood table!)
• put some shelves on the walls, for more space to mess up :) 

I am really happy I cleaned the face of the studio a little bit, now I have to kick myself to continue (and to finish all the unfinished projects I just found in the process!)

To see how everybody else cleaned their own studios, please visit our lovely host for a complete list of participants:

Sharyl's Jewelry ~ Clean-up, Fix-up challenge: the participants

Update ~ March 1st, 10:00 pm: I actually managed to get step 1 above *done*! It is a miracle, because in the process I cleaned up a quarter of the attic too (where packaging supplies were scattered all over) and I now have all my packaging supplies all in one lovely place.

The downside? I don't have as many beads as I thought I have :) Or I managed to use part of my stash in the past few months. I also found a mini-project my mom sent me so I'll have to get to that in the near future.