Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Sewing Room Tour

When it came time for our family of five to upgrade homes, a sewing space was a high priority. We knew we needed either a four bedroom home, or three bedrooms with a basement. I am incredibly lucky that my husband supports my love of sewing, and that he agreed I needed a good space to work. This house is perfect for a lot of reasons, a big one being my new sewing room!


The layout of our house is a bit unusual. We have a lofted area accessible by a spiral staircase (really). The loft contains one bedroom, an attic storage space, and a small landing. We have a baby gate across the bottom of the stairs to keep the kids out, which means the sewing area is off limits without a grown up.

I carried every stick of furniture up those stairs

Painting this room was my first priority when we moved. In fact, it’s the only room we painted.

Listing photo

After painting (temporary
sewing station!)

Given free creative reign, I chose pink! It’s bright, cheery, and makes me happy. The color is Rosy Outlook from Sherwin-Williams. I can’t say I recommend the paint, but the color is beautiful. There are actually pink flecks in the predominately blue carpet, which perfectly match the walls.


After settling on pink walls, I chose a specific color scheme for the room and have stuck to it almost religiously. The colors are pink, gold, black, and white. If there was a piece I had to have that didn't fit these colors, I spray painted it either gold or white (the cork boards below were spray painted on the edges).



The furniture is almost exclusively from Ikea. The one exception is the black and white chair, which was bought second-hand and reupholstered by myself. (Full source list at the end of the post.) The only piece I had before we moved in was the Expedit cube shelf/desk. It was a Craigslist find many years ago and we nabbed it for the super low price of $80 or something crazy like that. If you followed me before our move then you might be wondering about the Espresso colored Expedit I used to have...this is it! This particular style is no longer sold by Ikea, and I knew I couldn't wait forever to find another good deal on Craigslist just for a white version. I made the absolutely ludicrous decision to paint it white. Since we had to disassemble the shelf to move it, it made sense to paint it after the move and before putting it back together.



It. Took. Forever. It was such a terrible project. I followed this tutorial on Pinterest for painting laminate Ikea furniture. The primer from the tutorial was recommended over and over for laminate but it was such a pain. It was very runny and when it dried, it flaked into a million tiny pieces. I am incredibly lucky that I had basically an empty room to use for painting. My supplies were all over the place and I could work in small increments as I had time. And it took a lot of time. I'm going to skip to the end of this painful memory and tell you that I'm happy it's done, but I will never do it again and I can't really recommend it as the results aren't stellar.



ANYWAY. With the now-white Expedit as the anchor piece, I was able to plan the rest of the layout. There was a lot of measuring and browsing Ikea and remeasuring. I knew I wanted three machines out at once, a pressing station, and pattern storage. I tried to be very conscious of how I could most efficiently use my space.


One spot I had to work around was an exterior door that leads to a balcony. I don't spend much time out there since I'm rarely without children, but I didn't want to block the door. I've been told that two owners back, a painter lived here, and she's the one who painted faux woodgrain and hinges on it (our garage door has the same).


I also had to plan around a very large closet with double mirrored sliding doors. The mirrored doors are AMAZING to have in a sewing room, I'm not sure I ever would have thought of it and I'm so glad they were already here. The closet holds all the random ugly stuff that I want easily accessible, but out of sight. The ironing board is stored here, along with printed patterns that I don't think I'll ever use again. The pressing station has a small pad that I made myself, which I use most often instead of the big ironing board. Bonus: it matches the chair I upholstered!


Ikea allows you to buy table tops separately from legs or drawers so you can get just what you want. I ended up putting a drawer set and one leg under the Expedit desk instead of the piece that came with it. That's the beauty of buying everything from Ikea, it all works together. I absolutely love having the drawer set under the cutting board, there's plenty of storage here.


After putting in all the furniture, it was a slow build to finish the space with everything you see on the walls. There was a lot of trial and error, experiments, and daydreaming, but each piece was carefully chosen and sparks joy for me.



If you had asked me a few years ago, I never would've thought I'd end up with such a beautiful, amazing space. We've been in this home ten months and I'm still pinching myself. I wish everyone could have what I have!


I've tried to list everything I could in this source list, but please comment if there's something I forgot! Please note, Amazon links are affiliate links.


four drawer sets: Ikea Alex
gold/white lamp: Lowe's
gold jar with lid: Michael's
black/gold tape dispenser: Target (similar)
corner desk: Ikea Linnmon with Godvin legs (there are two legs that fit into the pre-drilled holes of the Linnmon tabletops, these are the heavier duty ones and I prefer these)
black and white chair: thrifted, reupholstered with fabric from Jo-Ann's
small white vase: Hobby Lobby
macrame hanging: made by me, supplies from Jo-Ann's
pegboard: Ikea Skadis+accessories
picture ledge: Ikea Mosslanda
succulents: Hobby Lobby (one on shelf in white pot), Amazon (loose ones)
succulent vases: Micheals, spray-painted white
succulent with face: TJ Maxx
wall succulents: Amazon
letterboard: Amazon
hanging succulent holder: Target
clock: Ikea Stomma
desk: Ikea Linnmon with Godvin legs
white desk chair: Ikea Snille
trash can: old, possibly Target
photo holder: super old, possibly Target
Moonrise Kingdom artwork: Arthur's Plaid Pants
The Office artwork: gift
hanging pattern holding bar: Ikea Fintorp (this exact style seems to be discontinued)
rolled pattern holder: Amazon
cube shelf/desk: Ikea Expedit (discontinued), painted white; now called a Kallax
storage boxes: Ikea Tjena
magazine storage box: Ikea Tjena
pressing table desk: Ikea Linnmon with Godvin legs
pink lamp: gift
pegboard: Ikea Skadis+accessories
white wall shelf: from previous owner
painting: done by me
cork boards: Ikea Vaggis spray painted gold
sewing caddy: vintage, gift

3 comments:

  1. What a great set-up you have! Enjoy!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beth it is ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS! I love the color scheme, it's such a great space - size, layout, accessibility...and you're right, who knew that those crazy mirrored doors from back in the day would be good for something :-p

    Congratulations on a dream room and for doing ALL OF THAT WORK!

    ReplyDelete

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