Features
Come behind the scenes at The Surznick Common Room for a #CraftRoomTour and see Sarah's Pittsburgh office.
Our favorite thing about the office is our craft supply pegboard. It's bright and colorful, and the "HELLO!" at the top is always a nice welcome when we enter the room. Having a lot of our supplies visible and readily available keeps us excited to work on different projects.
Tell us about your space
My boyfriend, Nick, and I co-write our blog, The Surznick Common Room. We found that our blogging time and relaxing/hanging out together time were getting too intertwined, so we wanted to dedicate a space in our apartment that was strictly for working on the blog. We created our office in a small room in the back of our apartment (about 10x15' - too small to be a spare bedroom.) We set up the office with a table workspace, a supply pegboard, and other items we need when working on projects. The space is too small to use on large projects, but we often use for small projects, photographing on our white tables, and writing blog posts.
What have you done to make your space cosy, beautiful or inspiring?
Since we rent our apartment, we're often limited by what we can change in our space. The walls and carpet in our office are an off-white/cream color, which isn't our favorite. We've brightened up the apartment with our pegboard, a turquoise rug, lime green chairs, and other colorful details. The room only has one window, but it is a greenhouse window with a space for plants. The plants get too cold there in the winter, but in the summer we like to keep some greenery in the space. We've also added little book page hearts in the window. They give the room a cozy feel that we love.
How do you keep organized?
To be honest, the room is often messier than shown in these photos. We often work on so many different projects at once so there are always different supplies being used. Not to mention, Nick and I both work full time so sometimes supplies are askew until we have the time to actually clean up from our latest project. One wall in our office is a big closet, so we take full advantage of this space to house the supplies that we don't have on display on our pegboard. Every once in awhile we take inventory of the closet and reorganize, as things undoubtedly get messy over time.
Any tips & tricks for organising supplies?
I think having a pegboard for our supplies was one of our best investments in this room. Not only does it house and keep our most used supplies organized, but it's also so visually appealing! Seeing so many colorful supplies and art on display keeps us inspired and interested in working on our next project, whatever that may be. We would also be lost without our filing cabinet, and a closet with lots of shelves, plastic baskets, wooden crates, etc. It's important for items to have a home so we know where to find them for our next project and to keep us as organized as possible!
Which are your favourite possessions and are there any of your own creations on display?
I'm not really sure what our favorite possessions are... My immediate thought was our book collection, however, it's not housed in the office. In this room in particular, I would say our laptops (how would we blog without them!?) and the Harry Potter prints we have hung on the wall. In addition to the HP art, there are some other pieces I've made hung on the wall (the hands, the Pittsburgh map collage, the lyric art, etc.)
How do you organise your inspiration and ideas?
Pinterest boards, a planner, notepads, and in our heads! I would say it's kind of organized chaos, but it's worked for us so far!
Where do you look for inspiration?
I look to Pinterest and other blogs for inspiration, but sometimes I can get completely overwhelmed with the amount of content out there. It can be inspiration overload for my brain and I need to take a step back to organize my thoughts and figure out what our next project will be. Right now we are trying to figure out what we want/need for our apartment and how to make it, rather than making something cool that we don't necessarily want/need and then trying to figure out where to put it. We're hoping to purchase a home in the near future, so when that happens our projects will be centered around updating/decorating our new space.
If you had three wishes, what would you do to make it the dream space?
I think I only have two wishes: big and bright. Photography is so important for a blog and we would love to have a space with bright, natural light where we can take beautiful photos. We'd also love a space that is large enough to work on all (or at least most) of our project so that the rest of our apartment can stay clean and organized!
Whose craft room would you love to explore? Send us a message!
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