Sunday, January 27, 2013

Updating my Sewing Space - The New

Bit by bit, Gus and I emptied his bedroom into the hallway, living room and dining room - I will spare you the pictures as I didn't take any to protect the hoarder in my house (me).  At the same time, we had to empty the spare bedroom/junk room, disassemble a futon to give away, clean carpets and get him set back up before school started back in January.  I think there is still a cabinet in there that needs to be cleared out, and some of our book collection needs to be removed, given away or stored so that he can take advantage of the built in bookshelves - though if we put that off long enough, he will be heading to college in about 6 years...

The reason for the move, rather than setting myself up in the spare bedroom/junk room is lighting. Our house is just not well lit.  And Gus's bedroom does not get much natural sunlight. My sewing room has better sunlight and allows me to look out the front of the house and see him playing basketball in the court or riding his bike with friends.  The overhead fixture is not up to the task of providing adequate lighting, so I've been taking advantage of sales to add to my collection of Ott lights. I have a floor lamp that I found at Home Depot (not on sale, still less than half the price of the ones at JoAnn Fabrics), a bendable desk lamp that I don't remember where I got - it was in my scrapbook gear mostly used at retreats, and two that I purchased on Thanksgiving from JoAnn's online sale (more than 50% off).  Tragically, the on/off button does not work on one of those... at least it is stuck in the "on" position - so I can turn it on and off using the power strip, which does force me to remember to turn off the power strip which is now on the windowsill so that I can reach it easily.

My big board is sitting on top of the four Rubbermaid containers of fabric along one wall next to the closet - which is actually an ideal height for cutting and pressing - but less than idea for searching the stash for the "just right" fabric...  Better organizing my stash is an ongoing and upcoming project.

Two features I really like in the room are the shelves which can easily hold my quilting reference library and the wall above my cutting station which now holds my ruler and stencil collection.  I'm also enjoying having a little flat screen TV so that I can listen to movies while I work. Less so the Wii in the other corner, but at least Gus plays most games with the sound off so that he doesn't drive me nuts with it.

There are still several things which need to be improved and better organized - like the stash of scrapbook and card making supplies. We are gradually purging the closet of baby items so that I can store stuff in there as well.

1 comment:

Jenny Squawk said...

I've been organizing my space for what seems like eons. Moving from one room to the other, installing new cabinets, and then the lighting. Never ending. One day the lighting will be managed. There is no better place for my supplies. I'm here to stay.

Back when Cor was a tiny thing, say three months old, I use to sew in the hallway. She couldn't stand to be more that one door way away. Needless to say, not much got done that year!