Welcome to my sewing room

Welcome to my new sewing room!

As I mentioned in my previous post,when Granite and I moved to Fullerton our new place was big enough for me to have my own craft room.  The room isn't huge, but it has windows on two walls and overlooks the backyard so I love it.

Arranging the room was SUPER difficult.  I have so many things that needed to fit that organizing the room was difficult to do, and many things got moved back and forth in the process.

Below is a picture I took from the doorway.  I painted the room a color called "sculptor's clay" that is a light grey with a slight purple tint, and I re-painted the sewing table laminate counter with special countertop paint in a color called "palest blue" which is just a pretty light blue color.  My color vision for the room was purples, blues, and greys.

One thing that Granite INSISTED be in my room was my romance novel bookshelf.  Yes, I'm sure none of you realized that I had so many romance novels, but my bookshelf is FULL, and I have many more I've lent out to people and many more on my Nook.

The painting in the corner was a graduation present from my sister when I graduated from college.  She took my love of purple and made an amazing textured painting, complete with a real tulle skirt for the ballerina. 

The shelves in the corner wasn't planned for.  It sits on top of a plastic bin of drawers that had originally been intended to hide in the closet but didn't fit, so it got put into the corner since nothing else really fit in there anyways.  The shelves had been in our old garage holding Granite's brewing supplies, but as I was trying to figure out a way to display some of my prettier fabrics (my non-Joanns fabrics) I remembered it and viola! it became mine.

 Taking pictures in the sewing room is a little tricky because of the mirrored closet.  For the closet I decided to split it in half conceptually.  On the right side of the closet is all of my papercrafting supplies.  I just got a new toy to go along with my Cricut machine and it's hiding in there somewhere.  I'll have to play with it a bit and then write about it in a future post.

My dress form sits prettily in the corner wearing my dachshund apron, and my garage sale find wall cupboard sits undecorated above it.  The only thing currently on it is my row of Timmys and a ball of twine.

My sewing table!  My sewing table was my graduation present from Granite for completing my MA.  It originally had an ugly sea foam marbled laminate top but I repainted it when we moved.  The sewing table was technically with us at the old house for about a month but I never got a picture of it there so I waited to post about it.  Originally this piece was a stand-alone kitchen counter from Ikea, with a removable counter that extended just a few inches on either side over the surface.  Granite found it on Craigslist and got it for me as a surprise while I was in San Diego.

To make it into the wonderful sewing table it is today he shifted the countertop so that all of the extra length extended to one side.  I chose to have the machine on the right side of the table so that quilts, etc. that I'm working on can rest on the length of the table while I sew.  He then traced the size of the base of my machine onto the countertop and cut.  He then took a piece of laminate he bought at the hardware store and drilled holes in four corners, and then aligned the board on top of the countertop and made four matching holes.  With the help of some long carriage bolts and wing nuts he attached the undertable, and I was able to just slip my sewing machine into the hole and adjust the wing nuts up and down until my sewing surface lay flush with the countertop.

It really came out wonderfully, and since the counter is high I don't bend over as much while I sew and so my back doesn't hurt as much, and since it's high I never have to worry about hitting my knees on the bolts that hang down.

I almost forgot to show you the serger! I noticed in the old house that my serger was rarely used since I always had to bring it out and set it up to do so, so I stole the sewing table from an old broken sewing machine and made myself a serger table.  It's unfinished, for some reason none of it's drawers have knobs or handles, so I need to find some. 

Also, this is NOT it's final resting place.  I think it will eventually end up next to the sewing table squeezed in there by the closet since this wall is destined for a daybed.  Yes, my sewing room is also the guest room.  We don't have a mattress yet for the daybed we purchased so I'm in no hurry to put it in, especially since it will make my room VERY cramped.

My desk.  Nothing fancy really.  Since I completed school and Granite is starting year three of his PhD I let him have my macbook pro and instead took the old window's desktop computer as my own.  This is it very de-cluttered.  I had originally hoped to have it open enough that I could do paper crafts on it but I doubt that will happen.  The huge screen is nice though for when I watch Netflix while I sew, so that's one perk.

And one final shot.  This is the view from my sewing table.  Across the yard that has nothing in it but grass, and a view of the hills.  It was kind of overcast when I took this picture, normally you can see the hills with the mountains behind them.  And when sunset happens, the view is amazing.

Well that's all folks.  Now that I've written about it it's time to put the sewing room to good use.  Feel free to stop by and sew with me sometime if you're local, I'd love to share the space.