“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction,” said Virginia Woolf. Although Woolf’s quote pertains to fiction, as any crafter will tell you, it equally applies to other creative types too. 

Well, in an ideal world, anyway. 

In real life, perhaps you’re skint, your child needed somewhere to sleep so you turned your spare room into a nursery and your craft space consists of a few square inches of kitchen table that’s not covered in Lego, slime and toy dinosaurs.

But whether you’re dreaming of your own craft room, or actually living the dream, here are five items you need to create your crafty utopia.

Table

First things first then. Buy the biggest table you can fit in your room. If you’re a sewer, you’ll already know the benefits of a big table when it comes to cutting out but all crafters need space to spread out and the more space the better. 

If you have the cash, splash out on a height-adjustable table so you can raise your table’s height for those times you need to stand over it. If a height-adjustable table’s out of the budgetary question, invest in some elephant feet furniture raisers instead. 

If you’re short on space, you might be tempted by a folding table. These undoubtedly have their benefits – the main one of course being that they fold up and can be stored neatly away when not in use. Folding tables aren’t very stable though and, unless you’re super-motivated, it’ll probably stay folded up because you can’t be bothered to keep unfolding it each time you want to make something. Plus, part of the beauty of having your own craft room is that you can leave everything out on the table and just shut the door on all the mess you’ve created without having to tidy it away each time the family sit down to eat. 

Pegboard

A pegboard is possibly one of the greatest creations ever invented. They look cool, they come in all different colours and they’re relatively inexpensive (if you go to your local pound shop and not your local craft shop, that is). 

Pegboards are infinitely adaptable and come with a range of accessories such as hooks, trays and jars to hold all your scissors, tapes, threads and anything else that can be hung on a hook put on a tray or kept in a jar. 

Storage trolley on wheels

A storage trolley on wheels is as handy as a pegboard. Especially if you buy a storage trolley that comes with its own pegboard. Storage trolleys are usually made out of metal and have three baskets in which you can keep all your bits and bobs. If you’re a sewer and really clever (which, as a crafter, you obviously are), you can attach a tabletop ironing board to the top of your storage trolley to make a handy, space-saving ironing board. 

Shelving

Go into any crafting Facebook group and if anyone asks about storage, they’ll get a load of people banging on about cube storage. Yes, cube storage is great – I have some myself – but cube storage takes up a lot of floor space and the fixed shelves don’t give you any flexibility. 

Shelving is the way to go. Adjustable shelving is even better as you can adjust it to your needs. Need one shelf higher than the other for your machines? No problem. 

You can never have too much shelving and it also has the added benefit of having things high up out of the way of inquisitive little fingers. 

Remember though, if you’re renting and don’t own your own home, you’ll need to check with your landlord before drilling into the walls to put up any shelves. Your landlord may well be delighted with you putting some shelves up for them but equally, they may well freak at the idea. 

Music

Most articles about craft rooms focus on storage and decor. This is absolutely fine and obviously, storage is essential. We’ve all started on our crafting journey thinking a spare drawer will do for our stuff then soon realised we actually need a whole new house to store our craft supplies. 

But what about the more abstract help with our chosen creative endeavour? Whether your taste in music is classical, pop or heavy metal, you need something on which to play some sounds for pleasure, inspiration and motivation. 

Whatever your budget and space constraints, your craft room can grow with you as your hobbies and supplies expand (and, as crafters, we all know just how much our hobbies and supplies expand and will continue to do so).