This year has been the ultimate struggle for me with the prioritization of my time, writing on the site and spending time in my hobby. However one thing was certain. When we moved earlier this year, 2023, there was one new requirement in our house shopping; a dedicated office and hobby space for me.
When I heard the words from my husband that when we moved I’d have a dedicated office for both my remote job as well as my hobby I was absolutely thrilled and frankly shocked. It has been a dream to combine all my loves into one place. I’ve wanted a way to creatively express myself, have doors that close to keep children out if I wanted to. I think my husband just wanted to keep me “contained” and stop spreading all over the house.
To fully understand the epic awesomeness of my new hobby space you have to see my setup in our previous home. My office and hobby stuff lived in three primary places;
- My “Office”
Since I work full time remotely a dedicated work PC and desk was required. When I went back to working full time after having two incredibly children we decided for the best mental health having my work area separate from my hobby area would allow me to still enjoy my hobby time in the evenings. While this has been all too true. Being realistic to myself I noticed that I would bring models to my work desk to organize, catalog, sort, etc. and it would just look like a normal hobby desk minus the paint. It was also next to the location of where I stored most of my models inside the house in an old TV stand. It looked nice but started to get incredibly disorganized.
- Storage Shed
Since we did not have an area to display any of my work minus a single shelf. Most of what I’ve made and painted ended up in an outdoor shed. Since I’d go out there often to grab something, move things around the collection started to rapidly expand and get messy. I’d have completely painted buildings just sitting around, boxes half filled and I am apparently terrible at closing lids. For anyone but me these boxes also couldn’t be distinguished from the other things which are pure storage. The temperature was not ideal in the summer and things could warp due to heat or break since others who put things in there would just put things on the models.
- The actual Hobby Space
Lastly and most importantly is my actual painting and printing space. This corner of paradise was located in our den. I took up approximately half of the room and shared the same room with our entertainment TV & sofa along with the laundry and liter box. If you look closely at many of my work in progress pictures you will see the laundry machines in the backdrop.
I absolutely made this space work and has been an oasis for me during the last several years. I just had to build vertically to avoid kids grabbing things and reduce the foot print. Next to the painting desk was my DIY 3D printing enclosure. It contained resin printing and FDM on top, a drawer for tools and below a cabinet for curing and materials. The enclosure also vented out the house through a window since it was in a highly trafficked area of the house.
The New Space
Fast forward to late May 2023 and we finally found our dream home. Including my dream space. It felt so great to start with a clean slate. Although i’m sure and admittedly already messed the place up. I can’t wait to show you all that i’ve done with this space since late May but due to its size and the vast amount of goals I have for the space I think its best if this becomes a multipart series. Including my storage solutions, painting desk, gaming area and display. Check out the before photos below!
What would have you done with this space? Are you happy with your work/hobby space? What are you interested in seeing first?
As always happy hobby,
Crazmadsci