I have a tendency to think of Karen and Thaddeus, a couple who’ve been living together since 2005, as mad tinkerers. There has never been a project the couple has not been able to conquer. From building a flat screen video game module frankenstein-ed together from salvaged arcade machines to knitting intricate soft sculptures, this couple is my favorite creative powerhouse. Karen is also a talented textile designer and collage artist, and you can purchase her collage art on her Etsy site. Besides their crafting projects, they also host elaborate parties that involve the brewing of their own alcohol and making, from scratch, of their own charcuterie. Given their rather disparate and overwhelming interests, it’s no surprise that this couple has a major need for organizing and storing their supplies when they moved into their North Oakland Craftsman two-bedroom home. I interviewed Karen to see how they do it, and snapped some photos to give you some steal-worthy organizational ideas.

Elka: How did you decide on this house?

Karen: We looked for the right house for a long time. We had decided on a couple of houses before we rented this one, but we didn’t get those houses. Thaddeus saw this house before I did, and convinced me that I had to see it. It has lots of nice architectural details (built-ins, simple woodwork), and we both loved that aspect of it.

E: What projects do you partake of in your house? Can you describe some of your favorite projects/hobbies/things you’ve made?

K: Thaddeus does some woodworking in his little shop in the basement (he wears a mask and has sawdust control down pat) He made some great redwood molding to display part of his book collection in the hallway. (I borrow his tools quite often.) I’ve got my collage making materials and sketchbook in our office (the 2nd bedroom) and do that sort of work either in there or at the dining room table. We both like to work in the kitchen – Thaddeus likes to cook and I like to bake, not exclusively, though – Thaddeus makes the best lemon scones. Thaddeus also has several collections. Collecting vintage and new books, games, & liquors are hobbies of his. We both also like to read and play games.

E: What kind of special storage solutions/etc., have you had to come up with to accommodate your hobbies, crafts, and arts?

K: The collections present a storage challenge, in our little house with its little rooms and tiny closets. The built-ins are a great place for the liqueurs. We also have an old library card catalog and a great wooden bar employed in the task of booze storage. Thaddeus keeps a hand-written reference catalog so he can find certain bottles when it’s time to make fancy drinks. We have lots of simple wooden bookshelves to store Thaddeus’s cookbooks (it has been estimated that he has over 400 of them!) as well as his fiction/non-fiction reading books. Thaddeus has been building storage for his game collection as it grows. We also use standard storage solutions like file boxes and craft organizers (like the kind sold at craft shops)

E: Where are your favorite places to pick up home décor items?

K: For furniture, I love Craigslist (sometimes amazing things for free) and Urban Ore, though it’s sometimes pricey for used condition items). We both like things made from metal, wood, etc. Not plastic, not particleboard. Older furniture often fits that bill in a style we both like at a price we can handle. Occasionally, we’ll get a piece of solid wood furniture from Ikea. Thaddeus bought his bookshelves from a local wooden furniture business that unfortunately no longer exists.
For art, I like local art shows and Tiny Showcase. For general home items, I like to pick up things when we visit foreign countries (when possible), thrift shops and antique malls. We also love home items that have been passed down though our families. Our dining room table is a family heirloom.

E: What have been your favorite home finds?

K: We both love our little sewing dresser. And we’re both keen on this cedar chest we bought in Southern California in January, but it has yet to find a permanent spot in our house. We plan on storing our wool blankets in it during the summertime.

E: What are your plans for future projects?

K: We’re working on sprucing up the basement of our house so that it is a more pleasant workspace. And this year we have plans to expand our container gardening (I hope we’re successful!)

E: You host a lot of parties. Can you talk about a few of these parties and ways that you’ve rearranged the house or changed the house to enable these parties?

K: For big parties, we have extra tables and chairs (the best ones are the wooden folding chairs that used to belong to the Buddhist Temple in San Jose. They have character and fold up nice and flat. We found them at the flea market in Alameda) that we store in the basement. We usually pull those out & extend the dining room table with the extension leaf (which Thaddeus made in his wood shop- when we got the table, it pulled out, but there was no leaf). I try to make sure that there is plenty of seating indoors and out (unless it’s a 100% indoor party). For a large casual party I often move the furniture to the edges of the rooms (the rooms in our house are quite small, and there would be no place for mingling if this wasn’t done). For a large indoor sit-down party, I line up tables end to end in an attempt to create something that will function as one long table – this can sometimes take up most of the space in the dining room as well as the living room. The wooden bar folds out to make a buffet, which is great for party food.

E: What do you think your biggest decorating/housing challenge is as a couple?

K: I think my obsession with finding the perfect couches was a big challenge. For a long time I couldn’t find anything I liked in a size that would fit into our little house. (At a certain point, the last thing Thaddeus wanted to hear from me was “so… what do you think of this couch?”) But after finding a little channel back love seat two vintage teak Danish couches on Craigslist (one of them was free!) the obsession has calmed. Now I face the challenge of re-upholstery.

E: Any advice to other crafty pack rat-er couples out there? (I mean this positively; you guys pack rat a lot of cool stuff.)

K: Thanks! Have a place for everything, have everything in its place (it’s also great to have a place off to the side with a door that closes, so that if you have a project in progress, you can leave it be, have a presentable house, and an undisturbed project) Also, culling out the things you no longer want and taking them off to be re-used is a great habit.