There may be no greater sense of satisfaction than the moment that follows a late night organization project.

We moved in May, and here we are in November, when we finally emptied the last box. There’s always a place where those extras end up. For us we got lucky this time with one of those loft-like storage units in our living room.

On the plus side, we got to leave about 15 boxes up there and promptly forget about them by June. On the other hand, it ended up being November until I discovered our missing set of coasters.

There’s a corner of that storage crawl space that’s just tall enough to sit up comfortably. When we moved in, I promptly declared it to be my secret loft / reading nook. It reminded me of one of my favorite spaces at a USV portfolio company, Wattpad, which has a beanbag loft room in their office. You can climb up the stairs and then curl up in a beanbag chair and look out the window as you sit among a sea of books and read.

I decided to replicate that vibe at home. My plan was to get a carpet and a tiny bookshelf and turn out crawl space into a secret cozy reading nook for the winter.

Of course I’ve done absolutely nothing since. Part of this is because of the weather; I spent most of the summer outside and started a small rooftop garden. This turned out to be a pretty great instant hobby for me, and I spent every morning and evening outside tending to my plants and flowers.

But then it got cold, which meant that any hope of outdoor space is long gone for the season. And when I got home today, after the first snowy day of the year, I found myself antsy for some tangible new activity or project.

So I finally took step one in our crawl space corner. I went through all of our random boxes and pulled out extra photos and art that we decided not to hang up anymore. Turns out that this is the perfect stuff for half-wall decorations.

You’d be surprised what can come out of a late night craft or organizing project. In my case I think I’ve stumbled upon my winter at-home hobby.