Conservatory or crafting room?

For a long time after we moved into our house (and we have been here 19 years now) I yearned for a conservatory. When I returned to work we increased our mortgage and had one built on to the back of the house and I have been thrilled with it. Initially we had a table and chairs out in it so we could eat out there, plus a tv, couple of armchairs and a sofa bed so we could put up guests. This worked really well for a couple of years and then we realised that we weren't actually eating out there much - when the weather was good we ate in the garden, when it was poor we ate in the dining room, so we disposed of them and made it into more of a second sitting room. This got used a lot, and I mean a lot when the children were teenagers and they had friends round - it meant either they went out there and we had the sitting room or vice versa.

Now, about 14 months ago I got fed up with crafting out in the kitchen at the breakfast bar - I had to tidy up all the time, didn't have much room and not enough storage space. After much consideration we decided to get me a desk come storage unit from Ikea, which has been great. However, as with all crafters I haven't had enough space to store my stash! I have had the use of a cupboard for my Cricut and paper, but that is in the dining room, which is a bit inconvenient. I have found that I haven't used my Cricut much recently as it is too much of a fuss to get it out.

So, this weekend Hugh and I had a talk about what we really wanted to use the conservatory for. We do sit out there when we entertain (which isn't very often), Penny goes out there to watch her wrestling once or twice a week and I go out there whenever I can to do scrapbooking. So looking at is dispassionately, the person who uses it the most is me! We decided to get rid of one of the armchairs and to get me a couple more storage units. We still have the sofa bed for when we have visitors, we can still seat several people if we entertain (and we can always take some chairs in from the dining room if we want to) and more importantly I now have everything to hand!

This is it in action! I have an Expedit 4 x 4 unit on top of the desk, the use of the sideboard to the right of the desk (which isn't in the photo) and this has the tv on it and storage for my books. To the left of the desk is my RUB mobile storage unit and then to the left of that is my mobile kitchen storage trolley from Argos.

I am really thrilled with my new Cricut storage unit! I now have everything in one place and it is so easy to get on and make use of this wonderful machine! In fact, I have done two layouts this weekend and used the Cricut on both of them - I had forgotten how much you can do with it.

I must just add here that I totally, totally love Hugh for putting all of this together for me over the past few months and also that I really appreciate the fact that I am taking over the conservatory lol!