I'm curious how other folks organize their giant mess of fabrics/furs/foams/parts and pieces. I've been cleaning out my workshop for the past 2 hours cleaning, sorting, organizing. It's maddening. I admit I'm a packrat which only makes things worse but I'm curious how everyone is storing all their stuff.

I'll take some pics and post up either in a little while or in the morning, 2:20a already running out of gas. Sad part is I have all this space but no ability to organize it..

Let's hear it, how do you store it all. Show me some pics if you have clever ideas.

At the moment, mostly everything I have is in big plastic tubs. Half of it is either under/near my work area, the other half is stored in my bedroom (closet or stacked against the wall). I should add: I used a piece of wood from a puppet set (a bench) and laid it across two stacked tubs. This allows a 'third' desk area, as seen below at left.

My slightly messy workspace:

I purchased a storage building with intentions of it being my work area. After setting it up with tables peg board on the wall and everything hanging and organized, I thought I was set. Well I now know why there called storage buildings. My Bedroom now serves as as office, day room, puppet work area. Na and Daryl have very organized work places. I'm pretty organized but with such tight places to work it doesn't take long for things to get messed up. My sister has a fortune invested in storage tubs. she keeps everything labeled, filed, papers and patterns are placed in zip lock storage bags and filed in notebooks. Scripts are filed away in notebooks by seasons and special occasions. I wished some one would write a book on how to set up and organize a puppet work area.

hint hint

  ...and I've been thinking I have problem with woodworking! I've got no problem! I just clean my room for 15 minutes after work. I keep unfinished marionettes in carton box and the tools in a tool-bag, knives in wooden box, painting stuff in a drawer.
There is only one problem: storage of ready marionettes. Soon I will have problem with keepinig all them "on strings". So I think about a removable mechanism (soul).

Here is where I'm currently at.. I did a bit more after taking these pics and started re-folding everything on the fabric shelves without the cardboard center as I was able to fit more per shelf and it's all about maximizing storage.. When I first moved in I had the center pieces on each fabric chunk but not it just makes it awkward and take up too much room.

Okay here we go.. Can't say I didn't warn ya.. I'm an extreme packrat but these are kinda before pics. Already had cleaned and dismantled a lot of stuff up to this point.

What you see walking into basement. Been keeping the mascot and other personal boxed items on this big shelf rack. Behind it is more storage but used for family storage, where I keep my drag wheels for my mustang, etc. basically behind that opening I leave off limits for family use. The stack of tubs hold the characters now, the double red stacked drawers currently hold stuff like props for smaller puppets, feathers, small boas, etc.



Now we are following that wall with the shelves and drawers, bins in photo for continued reference. A metal rack of old computer parts, some more car related stuff (my other hobby is offroading and drag racing so lots of junk for that always around too), and then it leads to the corner with my video bookcase and the work desk.



Next. The main work area. 2 desks bolted together basically. The wall used to have 2 racks that filled up all that empty space with characters on stands off the wall. It was making me crazy working with all the eyes staring at me though so I had to remove it.. I'll put a paiting or something up there. Left desk is the work table, sewing machine, another bookcase next to it (that I'm cleaning to use for who konws what) and then in the corner a double shelf for the fabrics.



Pic 4 just shows the rest of the fabric corner and then the greenscreen piece I have up that covers the door into the back room / laundry room / boiler room / 2nd workshop table area.. That's the hotbox room so I don't really use it much. Staircase back up on left.



And the 2nd workshop in the laundry/boiler room. I use this for regular home tools and stuff and cannot do anything smelly in there due to heat, and the womans clothing from laundry, etc. Right now it's barren of all the tools since they're upstairs while we work on 2 rooms we're remodeling so this is "neat" by my standards...



So... Anyone with advice on a good workflow for my little underground bunker of RL work and puppet madness?

Hmmm not sure why the pics are tiny.. I used the Gallery thought the full 800x5xx would show up..

Hmmm not sure why the pics are tiny.. I used the Gallery thought the full 800x5xx would show up..

Yea the Gallery Image button only lets you insert the thumbnail image. I want to re-write the code at some point to allow you to grab the full image instead. Now that I have the function to auto reduce the images the need for the thumbnail here is not as important.  The way I get around it right now is to go to the large image in the Gallery and right click and save the URL of the image. Then I pop back over to the post where I want to embed them and simply use the img tag. It is kind of a hassle. I get them fixed for you.

No problem, I direct hosted from my site. All ready to rock. Now you can see my mess in all its glory lol.

You know something I have been seeing alot of on the tour shows that come in are wire baskets that fit into metal rack. They slide into slots so act like drawers that you can pull out. The nice thing about them is that since they are wire you can see in them. I am not real sure where they are getting them. I bet a place like the Container Store would sell the units.

How about a vacuum seal machine or space bags for all your fabric.  Maybe not for the pieces you use a lot but for those that you don't use often it would condense the fabric down and let you get more storage area.  I bet it a system like that would condense your current fabric into half the space you have it in now.

I am a big fan of the rubber tubs that you are already using.  If you stick with one size you can easily stack them. The only drawback is that as a rule I always need the one on the bottom of the stack.

I was right... the Container Store sells the systems. http://www.containerstore.com/shop/elfa/bestSellingSolutions/drawerSystems?N=68564

They are not cheap. The manufacture of these is Elfa so you might be able to find cheaper sources by searching for Google Search: Elfa mesh drawers.