Tidying the sewing room

I feel very blessed to have a room of my own to sew in. We live in a three bedroom house and it's really a spare room but I have taken over. I would like to put a daybed or perhaps a fold out style sofa-bed in there for when guests come to stay - but I am slightly worried if I install a bed it will instantly become buried in stuff.

Lately I have been in the habit of working really hard on a particular project and then walking away and leaving a big mess as soon as the project is done. It was getting to the stage that I did not want to go in there and sew due to the mess. Fabric was piled up everywhere. Several paper patterns were in disarray across the floor. Piles of books teetered on every surface and it was hard to tell what was for sale in my shop and what was waiting in line to be photographed, tagged and listed.

So something had to be done, I mean - what's the point of having a sewing room that does not get used due to the mess? I set aside some time on Sunday afternoon to work on it. 

First I stood in there and looked around, I felt overwhelmed. I picked things up. I put them back down. I picked them up again. There seemed to be nowhere for things to go.

To solve this little impass I googled "how to tidy a sewing room". What came up were some blogs where people had done a sewing room makeover and shared the before and after photos. Some of these people had spent thousands - getting a new set of custom designed cabinets with special drawers and tables for cutting etc. There were colour coordinated storage containers, and colour coded fabric stashes. I really enjoyed looking at all the beautiful sewing rooms. All of a sudden I thought I want my sewing room to look a bit more like the after photos and less like the before. Even if I don't have special furniture I can still be more organised.

This blog has "sewing room of the month" which I really enjoyed reading:
http://artgalleryfabrics.typepad.com/weblog/2012/04/april-sewing-room-of-the-month.html

I moved the shelves off the desk where I sew and onto the narrow desk where I keep the overlocker. I then shifted my sewing desk under the window.

Suddenly the room appeared to be much much bigger. There was no longer a desk right inside the doorway. It was handy having those shelves over the sewing machine - it gave me all my threads, button collection etc within easy reach. But by moving them I gained the appearance of extra room, and as a bonus I can now sew while looking out the window. It's a western window and now that it's autumn it won't be too hot to have the blinds open.

The narrow desk with the overlocker and shelves on it was positioned at right angles to the first desk. The two desks left a square space in the corner of the room, so I stacked all the cardboard archive boxes up in there and now I have a spot for my lamp up high over my desk. Of course, Murphy's Law dictates that whenever I need something out of these boxes it's going to be in the bottom one! 

I drew a clumsy plan to try and explain all this. The other two walls are all storage but none of it is "built in" so it's all a bit ramshackle.

Maybe once I finish my sewing room makeover I'll post some pics. But in the meantime here's one of my doggy waiting for me to throw her a stick. I took this photo when I got home from work this evening, and you can see how green it is after the recent rain we've had. 

PS: I have a major quilt in the planning for someone very special, and I hope I can share photos with you in a week or so when it's done. So lovely to have a tidy room to work in!