Janetwaters....sure hope you can get the photos to download, I can't wait to see what a professional came up with, I would love to do the gutter idea for the ribbon that was mentioned by others .
For now I have my guest room taken over for cake supplies,
I have the closet set up with the plastic drawers, stacked on top of each other, a small book shelf on the floor inside the closet for mixes, and books,. I have a large dresser that the drawers store supplies. My ever growing pans and in the basement due to I have 2 large 4 shelf metal shelfing units full, and yes my husband has had it with my mess too. The hard part is after you bake a cake is to put it all back where it belongs.

LOVE the suggestions here... keep them comming !

Speaking of organizing...

Looky at what just popped up in my inbox...

http://www.diynetwork.com/topics/organizing/index.html?nl=DIY-NL_v197_TI-Organize

Great topic! I would like to start the New Years with all my cake stuff organized in one space. I have supplies in the cupboards, when you open the door stuff is falling out. I have cake supplies in my pantry with other food supplies. I even brought one of those on wheels handy man tool box lol! it's filled to capacity. My problem is i continue to purchase items not having anywhere to store them, but after reading this thread i'm hoping for some great suggestions.

I have to put most of my caking supplies in an open loft. I have a large closet in the loft that I am using for craft supplies, books, etc - I bought closet organizers for that. I have a desk and a chair in the loft. Since I have a sloped ceiling on the back wall - the wall is 60" high there, I was thinking about getting those premade modular kitchen cabinets to put along the wall, including one with drawers. Then I could top it with premade laminate countertop. Home Depot will probably cut it to length for me. I think I could do that myself (I live with my 86 yr old mother who does not climb stairs). It can be no more than 60" wide since I have an attic access door in the way. I might try that. Plus it will give me countertop space for crafting, etc.
I would just have to find someone to help me get the cabinets and countertop transported home and up the stairs.

OK - for the life of me I cannot get those pics to attach here. So I added them on Facebook cake page

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=185317&id=125350112109&saved#/photos.php?id=125350112109

I added the pics of the craft closet upstairs too -

I love this thread. After raising 4 boys, it is refreshing to be able to keep things organized once again. I'm fortunate to have an empty bedroom which contains the major part of my supplies.
I purchased a sink base at Lowe's upon which I fixed a table top to provide a good surface for fondant rolling. The two drawers hold various cutters and the cabinet below contains cake pans.
In the room are two small tables under which I store asstd. sheets of styrofoam and stands. On one I have a collection of (painted and labled for size) Pringles cans which hold stem wires. The closet affords more room for cake dummies and large cake boxes. On the sliding door I've fastened clips to hold stencils. In addition to cakebooks, a large bookcsse holds tylose, powdered and gel colors, bubble straws, cases of tips, and just a lot of STUFF. (As a caker, you know what I mean!) Along the wall on the floor are slotted office organizers to support various sizes of foam core and cakeboards. Three of the large rolling cabinets hold more molds and cutters, fondant supplies and icing bags, etc.
Everything is clearly labled so I can see at a glance what's what.
I am anxious to purchase the gutters for ribbon. What a cool idea! Now If I can just persuade one of my grown sons to take the bunk bed home, I will be able to further my addiction by buying even more STUFF.
Is anyone ever through?!

There are some really good ideas on here. I have a craftsman work bench sitting in my kitchen full of all my stuff. I have a box full of pans out on the car port that I don't use often. Then there is a shelving unit with all of my books and small items and a small folding table that I use for my fondant work.I am seriously thinking about cleaning out my office and putting all of my stuff in here, so I can shut the door when I am not using it. I also now have 2 cats and a puppy that I have to try to keep out of my kitchen when I am working on something.LOL. I only use my office for my computer anyway.
I used to be big into crafting and scrapbooking, and my room is still full of things I don't use very much since I got into caking. Only thing is that this room is too far away from my kitchen, unless I can talk dh into knocking out part of the wall and making a door for me. Then it will be into the ktichen.

Close my eyes, throw items in the pantry, quickly close the door and lean against it.....then slowly, ever so slowly, inch my way off the door until I'm sure it isn't going to burst open and hurl the contents across the room

All my stuff is in plastic containers from Target, super cheap
cookie cutters in the green bins (shoe box size) sorted and labeled by season and/or theme
caking and gumpaste tools in white bins, all labeled with contents
misc supplies (spatulas, bench scrapers) in blue plastic containers, all labeled
all molds in clear bins, all labeled

everything stacked neatly on wire shelves bought at Target in basement when I didn't have a shop. Now in the shop, same organization, couple of the Target wire shelves and everything is neat and orderly.

A wire stretched across the sides of the shelves hold spools of ribbon

ok Janetwaters.....I am COMPLETELY JEALOUS of your cake closet. It was great to see it and dream of it. P.S. ABSOLUTLY LOVE your cakes

Thanks Brenda! It took a while and cost a FORTUNE! but it was so well worth it!!

I would NEVER have been able to do it without the professionals help!

Thanks for the cake compliment too!

I can't believe all the response to this post, and great ideas. lets keep them coming. I think I will be going to Loews soon hehe Thanks everyone for the great ideas

funny thing is I was just about to post a mesage asking the same thing!!

I have a 2,100 sq ft home and it has 3 bedrooms 2 bathrooms and TINY , family room (med size) dining area and medium sized kitchen..and with no basement and no spare rooms . I have my 3 girls sharing a room ( which is so crowded)_ and my son uses the smallest bedroom. My husband uses our detached garage for a woodworking "shop'... woodworking is his hobby and there isnt even room in there for a car because it is so packed with his stuff..
that leaves me with my kitchen and bedroom. My bedroom is fairly large and it serves as a home office for my husbands computer, plus he has a "reloading desk" where he has bullets/hunting typ stuff.... he has a pretty substancial dresser and he takes up half the closet. that leaves me with one singular tiny nook for my stuff.

I have an old computer desk that i no longer used. ( my computer /home office is out in the family room..no privacy ugh!) and that desk shoved int the corner became my craft nook.
My setup is :
a big desk with the lower drawers and low areas for my sewing and crafts
then I have a plastic sheving unit on top on the desk . it has bins with both sewing and crafts as well as a few bins with my molds and "press sheets "
Then I have a plastic tower of drawers ( cheap sterilite from target) the top drawer is candy colors, gel pastes, and petal/ luster dusts.
next drawer is my cutters and modeling tools, pastry wheels, bench scraper , sugar duster..and and those kinds of things..
the next drawer is dowels & wires, piping bags /tips, and spatulas.
I have a tub full of chocolate/candy melts and my cake lifter on top of that. it also has some smaller rollers/ dowels for rolling out fondant.. big huge long rollers for rolling out huge fondant peices get stood upright , next to it.

the rest of the stuff goes in the kitchen.
the fondant , gumpaste premade modeling chocolates, fillings, cake ingrediants, piping gel , emulsions ect all goes into the pantry. I have wire shlving and it is starting to sag in the center from the weight of the fondant tubs alone! I have to stand up on a step ladder to even get to it because it is so far in the back corner on top. the rest of the pantry is regular family food and cat food is at floor level.

one tiny cuboard has some cake boards, styrofoam, florists foam, fondant mat .
the tops of my regular cupboards have all my cake pans. I have them nested up there.. I have prolly about 15 pans total. I also keep my cake turntable there.
my KitchenAide mixer ( a pro 600 , 6 quart ..) stays on my counter.
the rest of my cake related stuff is throughout my kitchen.(like parchment and saran wrap is down where the regular foil and sandwich bags go.
the thing i hate is that I have to "break it down, pack it up" a few times a day because I have to use my kitchen for a regular kitchen too ( and i make a large from scratch homecooked meal every single night, ) and cannot have stuff all over the place. I hate that I can have almost every single counter ( as well as my "island"/"bench" which is just a table in the middle of my kitchen ) taken up with cake related stuff... especially when I have gumpaste flowers/ figures or modeling chocolate/ cereal treat figures in trays ( that I have to cover in some way to prevent damage or contamination ) waiting to be finished or waiting to go onto the cake, plus cakes cooling ,( that I have to cover, we have cats and I cannot run the risk of their fur drifting onto one.) .. buckets of fondant out... I run my dishwasher 3 times a day and have my counter full of handwashed stuff drying too... ... ugh... I especially hate having to walk back and fourth to my bedroom to get and put away supplies. it is on the opposite end of the house!I hate that .
I have a standand fridge and freezer and a lot of my cakes are too big to even fit in there even when all the regular food is removed. ( I have a chest freezer, which is a deep freezer but it is always full and not very wide anyways)
lately my cakes have been 12-16 inches wide , around 12 inches tall, and weighing in between 30 and 50 lbs!

I am literally outgrowing my house!

Its not just the big things like pans and cake boards for me its the little things.....I can never find what I need until I dig and dig thru a plastic box. And my drawer with my large serving things and odds and ends, now also seems to get icing tips if I am in a hurry ....so its just a scattered disorganized horror show. I am reading such good ideas......hopefully I can get motivated to finally get this studd in one place, but I just can't see how at the moment.

My hubby says many many husbands will thank me for this post ahahahahahah

We have a spare bedroom that we use for all of our hobby stuff, so I keep most of mine in there. I have a shelf in the closet for dummies, fondant buckets and things like that. I also have stacking containers with snap-on lids to keep smaller things and edibles like cutters, candy melts, tips, and dowels.

I seldom get to bake cakes but I really enjoy decorating them. I am lucky in that we have a spare room and I claimed it as my "art room". I am an astist with many mediums and I bought those drawers on wheels so I have several of them for different crafts. I keep all my cake decorating things in tose, except the larger things like pans etc. which are kept away in the closet.

To everyone looking for organization ideas:

I am also in the same boat. My stuff was in all different cabinets in the kitchen, the top and bottom shelf in the pantry, in the guest bedroom closet and also in cardboard file boxes and plastic rolling carts with different size drawers just sitting on the dining room floor. I even had stuff scattered all over my dining room table all through the holidays. It was a good thing I didn't really need my dining room this Christmas because it was strictly used for decorating cakes, cupcakes and cookies from October through the end of December.
Now I'm finally gathering more Storage carts and starting to stack some of them on top of the others that are alike instead of putting the wheels on the bottom. I'm finding that I need to start storing things "upward" rather than spreading them "outward" and taking up more floor space. I wish we had a 3rd bedroom and I woudn't have to worry so much about the storage issue. I also bought a plastic garage storage cabinet with double doors to put all of my pans in but everything else is going to have to stay inside the house.

Good luck to all of you! Hope you all find clever ways to get organized...finally!

after looking at that craft blog, I am SO glad that I do my scrapbooking and card designing digitally. I wouldn't even know where to start if I had all of that stuff to deal with on top of cake decorating stuff. Now my computer needs to be organized, but that's another story... LOL

My supplies are all in the basement closet-from when we moved a year & a half ago! I have a 5 drawer rubbermaid unit on wheels for freq. used items. Other items are stored in clear rubbermaid boxes-they were organized at one point! The best thing I did with the boxes was to use and index card and write down the contents of each box and tape to the inside of the clear lid-so the list would show through the lid. Another list could be added to the inside of the front of the box-or whatever side is visible.

I have clear plastic box with a handle with all the supplies that I need to start a cake-bags, tips, colors, couplers, icing speaders, etc. Then I can grab it and go and know I have what I need to get through the majority of the cake.