Sewing Rooms, Craft Areas, and the Home Office

Prepare to lose all respect for me. This was my office/sewing studio/school room.  It was a mess. (It’s a different kind of mess now.)

shelves 021

shelves 020I forget the actual measurements of the room, but it’s something like 20 feet by 17 feet. If I wanted to get nothing accomplished today I would go measure it for you to be sure.  But then I would start sewing, or cleaning and forget the whole  reason why I was in there.

shelves 019The ceiling has a good pitch and the side walls are barely over 2 feet high.  Which doesn’t make much useable wall space.  But after taking this picture, I realized that I wasn’t fully using the wall space I did have.

shelves 018So I hired a friend to build plywood shelves on two sides of the room.  He bought the wood for me and I painted them.  2 coats of primer and then 2 coats of paint (We used both rollers and paint brushes.  We also purchased a paint sprayer for the project which was a waste of time and money.  It just spit out paint in weird drips and we had to use a roller over it anyway.) Painting all this wood took 2 days. (Not steady work, including dry time.  But our backs, shoulders and arms were sore.)
shelves 032

I had visions of floor to ceiling Billy bookcases in my office, inspired by too many hours spent on Pinterest.  But the nearest Ikea is in the Chicago area–not even sure how far that is. And I have wonky angles in my room that Billy’s really weren’t prepared to handle. Custom was the only way for me.

Homemade baby food 021

We moved everything to the other side of the room so Mark could work.Before Office Shelves

And work he did!

Homemade baby food 032 Homemade baby food 031

Homemade baby food 035 Homemade baby food 034

I went through my fabric and got rid of at least 4 bins, leaving me way too much.  And I ordered comic-book card boards from Amazon.com to make mini-bolts of the fabric I had left.

(Affiliate link above)

They went on the short shelves along the side of the room.

Office Fabric

I love that I can see my stash fabric at a glance.  I buy a lot less this way. I worry that the fabric will get damaged from the lights in the room.  (There isn’t much direct sunlight, but there is lots of florescents.) My plan right now is to cut around the light mark if that happens.  I should sew more stuff and use it up before light damage can happen :).

Office Couch envelope pillow covers

Then I bought a couch on Craigslist and put that on the other side of the room and shoved all the rest of my stuff that I didn’t know what to do with behind it, bwa ha ha.  Look in the corners of the pic and you will see it ;).

I also purchased a desk on Craigslist and a white bookcase from Target.com. I’m waiting for a tabletop from Target to come and have boxes of closetmaid 9 cube shelves to put together to build this:

Pottery Barn Bedford Table

I’m scared about this, because I haven’t figured out the furniture arrangement of it all.  Nothing is returnable once I assemble it….and it was $190 for the set.  (But from pottery barn it would have been $1100!) Right now my sewing machine is taking up precious wall space that I thought might free up with this table.  And I might be able to stand and sew–which would save my back and help me get a lot more done.  I’ll keep you posted with updated pictures when I get some stuff figured out.

If you need more ideas, check out my Pinterest page on the subject:

 

 http://pinterest.com/angelacoffman/office/

 

especially this one:

mind-boggling organization.

What kind of projects are on your office or craft room to do list?  Any tips for me?

 

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6 thoughts on “Sewing Rooms, Craft Areas, and the Home Office

  1. Lynnette says:

    I am working on doing the same thing in our guest room which has become a dumping ground for everything. I love what you’ve done so far! I made great progress on New Year’s Eve day. I am hoping for more time to do more over the weekend. Thanks for inspiring me!

    • Angela says:

      Rhonda, I think they are fake whatever they are. My dream is to paint them white, BUT they are warped from some kind of water situation years ago and have big spaces between the panels. Painting them would accentuate all their flaws, so I’m holding out for real bead board (that will cost an arm and a leg.) And by the time I can afford it, I may have a different style…It’s so hard for me to make decisions that might cost money, lol.

  2. Heidi Perkins says:

    I loved your messy room pictures. It makes me feel like I’m not alone! I’m still trying to organize everything after our move. I love your shelving! Have you ever heard of Ana White? She makes and puts out plans for free of her own versions of Pottery Barn things. Her website is ana-white.com.

    • Angela says:

      Heidi–whew! It was scary putting those pictures up there. I really like things clean–but that doesn’t mean they are always that way, lol. Having good organization systems sure does help though. I love ana-white! I even tried some of her stuff and figured out I’m an utter failure at wood. I will try again some day when Darren can work along side me. I wasted a bunch of wood, lol. I think there are pictures way back on my blog somewhere of the fail, lol.

  3. amanda says:

    I love the sewing table idea!!!! Sooo much joy & I want to copy it too. I don’t think you would get 1100 of joy from pottery barn haha. But I really love the idea of sewing standing . And all your readers totally love your honesty when it comes to posts like this. It makes me & the rest of us feel like we really are friends cause that’s how friends treat each other. We share what’s working for us and our successes… Even when its not perfect…. Oh and as far as the fake panelling goes… Have you considered whitewashing it? It is great with the new shelves as is… But if you want to go lighter without spending $$$$ it might work.

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