My Sewing and Craft Studio Redesign: The Work

I had a plan for the revision of my sewing and crafting space, and I had done a lot of purging of things that were being stored. Now it was really happening! The work was beginning!


Thank goodness I had already completed (mostly) my purge! That work took a week, and now I needed to pack up everything to move out so the remodel could begin. You might think that it's not that much to do, but every surface had to be cleared, every drawer emptied, everything removed from the wall.

I went to the Office Depot and bought a ten-pack of those cardboard file storage boxes. I filled those boxes and six plastic crates, covered my dining room table and china cabinet with sewing machines and my Cameo, and cutting mats and craft supplies. We moved my printer, which is a pretty big one, to a small table in the front room. I moved a desk to the guest room so that I would have a place to work while I was displaced. Remember that storage space I mentioned in my last post? I had purged and cleaned it and was so proud of the results. Not anymore; it was packed full. After two long days, everything was contained and labelled and/or moved to another space.

The interior walls are gone!

Then the transformation began. Furniture and exercise machines were moved to the garage. Those temporary walls came down, which was immediately gratifying, as the room lightened up considerably. But the real light came when the painting was done. The walls, trim, and ceiling are all the same color, and so was most of the floor at first, because they spray painted. To walk in with everything painted white (Benjamin Moore White Wisp) and large furniture pieces covered in painter's plastic felt like walking into a cloud. It was both eerie and awesome.

Then the new flooring went down. It was like the icing on a cake, so beautiful. The flooring is LVT (luxury vinyl tile) from Interface; the color I chose is Washed Wheat. There are lots of colors/designs to choose from, and I had three samples on my floor for a week before I made a decision. The tiles are plank shaped and they aren't stuck to the floor, they are stuck to each other with a kind of sticker called TacTiles. It's a floating floor, but there's not really any float, because those tiles really hug the floor.

Old Cutting Table

The last main project was to build my cutting table, and it is awesome. I had had a cutting table that had leaves that folded up or down for almost 30 years, and it was getting a little wobbly. I almost always kept both the leaves up because I could keep bins and such underneath for storage. Also, I had been using one end as an ironing table. I attached an ironing pad like this one to the table with large binder clips. Since the table is a little wider than the pad, I sewed extensions on each end that were long enough to wrap around and under.  I really liked this system and wanted to keep it, so I took the leaves off the table and made the center part my ironing table. The new cutting table has lots of storage and I'm really happy with it.

Beginning of my Cutting Table

I began moving things back in even before the cutting table was finished. Putting things away took more time than packing them for storage. This was the hidden blessing of having to empty everything, because then I had to make a decision about the best place for everything as it was put away. Also, some storage was gone and some was new, so that called for decisions. Everything has found a home now, and so have I in this new space. I'm not sure how to explain what a difference it makes to walk in here now, but I feel it all the way to my soul.

Next week's post will be The Reveal! I'm so excited to show it to you.