The great sewing room reorganization

How better to start off a new blog than with pictures of my newly redone sewing/office space? My space is a shared bedroom converted into an office. DH has the other little space off to the left for his desk. I get the majority of the office space.

It had gotten really cluttered and messy. The desk and bookcase were residuals from when it really was an office, when I worked at home. We had slowly migrated it more to a sewing space, keeping the computers and desks in here as well. I really needed more space for my sewing and less space for my desk/computer though now that I wasn't working from home at my desk.

Here are a few "before" pictures. The first one shows the nice window I have, with my sewing space on the right of the picture. The big basket is overflow fabric, mending pile and "to do" list of projects. A big ole mess is what it is.


Better picture of the sewing desk itself. Underneath are my "scrap" pieces of fabric, which totally are out of control. That huge bin is full of just scrap pieces of woven material. That doesn't even show the knit scrap pieces!


Overflowing mess of a bookcase full of fabric. The bookcase was totally not suited to storing fabric.


And the left side of the desk with junk on the floor, a storage area for more "to do" projects, projects in progress and two wire drawers full of the knit scrap fabric. Believe it or not, the knit scrap was worse last month before I sewed some of it up.


We decided to get some better storage from IKEA to start with, and it progressed from there. I now have the following "after" room. First up, the sewing area itself. Not much changed there really, except some stuff was moved so it looks nicer. The shelves were there before up high. They hold my patterns in plastic tubs. I also have some elastic and notions stored up there. One cork board holds patterns in progress or that I use a lot, my measurement charts and other sewing things. The one on the right holds general purpose desk items.


Another view, shows the sewing desk plus you can see how the old storage unit from the left of my desk tucks underneath now. It holds the same stuff, no change there. You can also see the corner of the new white storage unit under the window.


The biggest change of course was the white storage unit. This is Expedit bookcase on its side under the window. This is sooooo awesome for fabric. The cubes are perfect width and depth for ruler folded fabric. The depth is 15 inches, which is perfect for the longer 60" wide fabric ruler folded. And two stacks fit perfectly side by side. So nice.


Another view, this time showing the larger Expedit shelving unit to the left of the window. I tucked my sewing books on top of that. And you can see the new large cutting table. The countertop was also IKEA, found in the "as is" section for $15! We put it on two IKEA kitchen carts we already owned that were in the kitchen. It worked out perfectly, very nice height. I stuck my cutting mat on there. The scissors are now held by an IKEA magnetic knife holder. No more hunting for scissors in a bin.


Last picture shows the cutting area. We reserved the back part of my monitor, keyboard and mouse. The laptop sits below on one of the shelves. We hauled out the old barstool from the garage. This had been a barstool from DH's grandfather, from his garage. It is a little bit too tall but the kids like it. With this setup now Zach can sit and browse with my computer or play a computer game, keeping me company while I cut or sew, and I'm right there to help him. The white shelving on the wall is also IKEA, from before. The magazine files are, yes, you guessed it, IKEA. They hold my Ottobre magazines, my Burda pattern magazines and back issues of Threads magazine and Sew News. I also store my lace, ribbon, trims, embroidery thread and other misc notions in boxes up there. The wicker basket has all my regular elastic, picot elastic and so forth.


So that is my sewing area. Anyone want to share a link to pics of theirs? :)