Tidying Up

Because I am only a part time belly dancer, and a full-time minute-taker, housekeeper, wife and creator of mess extraordinaire, my costume room is also my crochet room, my sewing room, a spare bedroom, a laundry room, the computer room and a receptacle for stuff that doesn't have a home.

At present, it also contains a farily large chunk of kitchen cupboards and fitments, because I was foolish enough to believe my husband when he told me the refit would only take a few weeks... 12 months ago. The contents of the cupboards ended up on the spare bed, and because I am allergic to the concept of putting stuff away, so did everything else. The George Foreman grill hobnobbed with the silk veils, the skein of cashmere yarn mated with a coin belt, the specially modified black lace choli sneaked off into a corner and caused me hours of panic before my last performance...

Incredibly, this is partway through the cleaning up process. Costume items are slowly accreting on the chair, fabric on the table in front of my beloved sewing machine Fritz. Drying clothes have been evicted to make the most of the sunshine, drying Irish setter is regarding me mournfully, just out of shot (he objected to being forcefully removed from his comfy nest in a 22 yard skirt.

Part of the reason for posting this is in the hope of embarrassing myself enough that I will never let it get this messy again, but it's also to remind me of what I actually want to do with this room once it's clear of crap. It's been years since I (a public-sector-employed devotee of all things stretchy and non-iron) merited more than two hangers in the wardrobe I share with my husband (international business man of mystery), so obviously this needs to actually house my dance wear, and in slightly more elegant form than jute shopping bags and the dreaded 'dump it on a chair' school of hanging up.

Ideally, I want a marriage of this...
Ikea expedit storage unit
and this...
Moroccan boudoir
Scandinavian storage, practicality and price, but with a hint of exoticism. A belly dancer can dream, right?