NiftyVT's Hobby Space Final Form . . . Maybe?

[NiftyVT]

So, my wife told me a couple months ago that I had to vent my airbrush booth outside. . . so, I decided to just redo my entire hobby space, rearrange the basement. . .and things kind of got out of hand! 

 

But first every hobby space starts somewhere. When I was much younger (grade school) my space was wherever I could find a spot in the house to temporarily set stuff up to hobby. College was the pull out keyboard tray on my desk and one of my desk drawers for holding extra supplies. When I finally got around to getting my own place I used an entire spare bedroom plus whatever furniture I could scrounge for dirt cheap/free or what I could build myself (back when 2x4s and plywood were cheap! ).

 

First real hobby space. Ahhh, single life.  2 free random desks, home made airbrush booth, cheap IKEA lamps, and a home made main desk plus some track shelving, chairs, an old filing cabinet and other odds and ends I salvaged from my parents place that they didnt want/were throwing away.

 

Then I got married, moved to a different state, new house, kid, = time to move the hobby space and cram as much as I can into a small corner of our new basement.  Airbrush both was condemned to the basement spare bedroom so its not pictured. The dresser was my cloths dresser from my first place that 'didnt fit the new bedroom style' according to my wife, so I cut the legs down and put it under my desk for a ton of extra storage space. IKEA cabinets were also from my first house. Only thing I really upgraded was to pick up some new plastic drawers. I have been basically just buying the cheap plastic drawers as the others fill up, so things were a bit (understatement of the year) unorganized.

 

Now for the latest build and final form (maybe, kind of, hopefully) of my hobby space. This took quite a bit of work! First up I drilled a 4" hole through the exterior wall (concrete filled block and brick). I also trolled the internet and took notes on as many youtuber hobby spaces as I could find. I really liked Ninjon's space, paint racks on the wall, nice looking kitchen cabinets for storage, I liked it! Then I took a long look at IKEA's kitchen cabinets and really liked that they had base cabinets with a ton of shallow drawers and said, "why the heck not, lets do this!" After measuring everything what seems like 100 times I dropped the cash and ordered the cabinets. Cabinets came in and I put some stuff together and started dry fitting things. 

 

First up was the upper cabinets, ok everything fits nice. I am reusing the black IKEA BESTA cabinet.

 

 

I measured  everything out, cut a big opening in the drywall and drilled the big hole through the side of the house. Ran a 4" round duct through the wall and put a nice aluminum vent with a damper and bug screen on the outside.

 

 

Then I started putting up cabinets. I got this far and then had to measure out and cut a big hole in the back of one of the cabinets. I also decided that the little blue wall hanging cabinet had to go because I wanted much larger opening for a chair. Right next to this space, under the window, is a spare guest bed so that bed lost one night stand (zero cares given lol).

 

 

Nice! Now I was getting somewhere!  More cabinet building, little blue cabinet gone. I forgot to run that power strip previously so had to un bolt everything from the wall, fish that behind the cabinets and re-bolt. Stained and clear coated a butcher block counter top from the local hardware store and things were really starting to come together.

 

After putting on all of the drawer pulls and running the airbrush duct out of the side of the cabinet  with a quick disconnect (all hard line inside the cabinet) I was basically done. . .except for organizing all my junk that I have collected for the past almost 30 years and putting it away. Bin one of way to many shown in the picture.

 

 

I decided to organize by the 'first order of retrieval' method. So things I used most often are in the top drawers and then things that I use less often are further away, things I use least often are banished to upper top cabinets. My goal was to have as little clutter on the desk top as possible. 

 

Drawer to my left. Mostly building minis stuff and some spare brushes ready when needed because they just happened to fit well there.

 

 

Drawer to my right. Orange clipper bin is my most used building items plus some other things I find myself reaching for on a regular bases. Most used paint brushes are on a stand on the desk top. I also have a basing stuff drawer, a transfer drawer (so. . .many. . .transfers!), big tool drawer (clamps and stuff). I think what I keep were will evolve for a while as I settle in.

 

Getting there. . .but those old tiered paint racks. . .they take up SO much desk space, much clutter, must destroy the desk top clutter!

 

Finishing touches. . .for now. To the paint rack rescue was a random Etsy seller called WhatsInTheBoxGames and his GREAT RACK System. I ordered a rack system and after decades of buying one off paints just to find myself not having the color I want I also ordered the entire new Army Painter Fanatic Line. . .because why not! I told WhatsInTheBoxGames that I ordered the Fanatic line and he said that if I could wait a bit he was currently designing a new rack layout that will allow each set of 6 paints to have their own row. So I waited, and this is the result! 

 

 

Then I added some final touches, like out with the old and busted cutting mat (actually just moved over to the side to protect the desk there), and in with a new super cool mat from Miniac. And started getting my paint cups and other odds and ends set out. Plan for the airbrush booth is to eventually build it its own little desk after I murphy bed the spare bed that gets used maybe once a year so that its out of the way (ahh, another project).

 

 

And thats it! Its hobby time!

[NovemberIX]

That's an amazing set up, my scattered and addled brain would love to be nearly as organized! It looks like it's gonna be a great working space. It's amazing the things you can do with IKEA, a little creativity and some elbow grease.

[NiftyVT]

1 hour ago, NovemberIX said:

That's an amazing set up, my scattered and addled brain would love to be nearly as organized! It looks like it's gonna be a great working space. It's amazing the things you can do with IKEA, a little creativity and some elbow grease.

 

Thanks! I spent many days worth of nap times and after bed hours organizing all my stuff. I had EVERYTHING spread out on the floor in piles based on use. I just went plastic drawer by plastic drawer, random tub of stuff by random tub of stuff and set everything in the appropriate pile. Then I got a bunch of those white drawer organizers, took the drawers out and laid them on the floor and started puzzling things into the white drawer organizers and then into the drawers. Took a couple iterations before I just said 'good enough' lol.  First time in 30ish years of hobby that I am finally mostly organized.   But somehow I still find myself going "where the  did I put that thing I know I have!?!?" while going through every drawer and cabinet.  

[Raziel-TX]

Night and day difference-very nice!  Thanks for sharing. Always interesting to see how different people tackle the challenge of doing this hobby over longer (years-decades) periods and as family grows. 

[W.A.Rorie]

Ikea building Hobby spaces for gamers. 

 

Love the changes and looks great. Ninjon has a killer set up and you did good job emulating it.