Welcome to my new sewing room
After a long absence (nearly a year…), I am back to my beloved blog. Lots of changes, most importantly … a new sewing room! So if you are after fresh sewing room ideas, read on.
Why away so long?
Well, a lot happened in a year! We finished building a house and moved in, which seems minor when put on paper but was a huge life challenge . The fact that we knocked down our previous home to build a new one and moved for 18 months to a rental I hated did obviously not help…
That said, all is good now. I am still buying furniture like there is no tomorrow but we are laregely settled, so time to go back to sewing and blogging!
A new sewing room: from concept…
I was lucky enough to have a sewing room in our previous house, but it doubled (well, tripled) as our family office and guest bedroom, so no room for a cutting table or an ironing space. Also, I had designed the sewing space when I had far less fabric and only one single machine… Ah ah ah, these time are long past!!!
So the new sewing room needed to include:
- a proper cutting table;
- lots (and lots and lots) of storage room for fabric;
- a large desk to accomodate 4 machines (sewing, embroidery, overlocker and xx)
It also needed to double-up as my personal office. So even more desk space! And did I mention I am a bit OCD? So as much as possible hidden from sight please.
So let’s look at the original sketch I drew:
… which over the months translated into a 2-D plan:
… and after more months into 3-D visuals:
… to reality
And now the sewing room in the flesh – come in!
I am a pink and purple girl so I deliberately forced myself to chose neutral colours for the furniture so I could go crazy with paintings and accessories.
The huge desk space is perfect and I definitely use 100% of its capacity. The three under-desk drawer units allow me to have my needed accessories handy.
I have a storage unit above the desk, which I adore. The first section is for all my sewing notions and the other three for my sewing patterns, all neatly stored in plastic jackets and then in classified folders.
I wish the cutting table was a bit longer and wider, but at 1×1.85m (40x73in) it is not bad and the absolute maximum I could accommodate in the space.
The large drawers underneath the folding table and directly facing it are all for fabric storage. I have 12 in total and I try and split fabric by composition. Despite my extensive stash, there is still a lot of room left for future purchase. Not sure it is such a good thing…
The tall units allows for extra storage and are not full either, yes!! You can see that this is where I store my mini ironing table and my iron – no matter how much I use them, I definitely cannot bear the constant sight of these!
I am still thinking about a few additions for this room. I have just ordered a full-size mirror and a corner hanging unit to be able to hang my just-finished makes (instead of pilling them on the mannequin). I would also love a small round rug and a lounging chair but all in its time…
Ideas to furnish a sewing room on a budget
If you would like to reproduce the ideas I’ve used for my sewing room but don’t want to spend on custom furniture, here are a few suggestions – coming directly from what I used in our rental house.
For the cutting table, I used 2 Tornviken IKEA kitchen islands – you can have them side by side or back to back to create a large cutting space; and they have storage underneath for sewing notions.
For the desk, I used the Lagkapten table top (in 200x60cm but it exists in smaller lengths), combined with one Alex drawer unit and the Hilver desk legs. I liked this desk so much that all my children asked for a similar one, so we now have them scattered around the house.
And for fabric storage I used the Platsa cupboards with the Fonnes doors. They are in no way as good quality as the Pax system, but much cheaper and easier to assemble (or disassemble, as I seem to be continually doing). All these have now been reused in the basement of the new house.
Ready to sew!
So now that I have introduced you to my new sewing space, I’m ready to show you all my backlog of creations of the past year. Still figuring out how to do this without boring you to death though so suggestions welcome!
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