All the furniture that I really wanted in my studio fits! Yeah! This little corner is the only one that's not still cluttered. The treadle sewing machine was my great-grandmother's, on my father's side. There is another stack of drawers for the right side that need attaching. I haven't come across them yet. The lovely quilt rack actually belongs to my dear friend Carol. It was a homemade wedding gift to her son. He has a tiny house and it didn't fit, so Carol got it. But her studio, while huge, can't accommodate it either. Hence I'm
using it storing it for her. Thank you, Carol.
My sewing machine cabinet (Koala) is fully opened out in another corner. It can become half-size to save space, and then open up when you are quilting something large, but I like to leave it open all the time.
One of my goals was hopefully to have my cutting table fully open and be able to walk around it. This is also a Koala cabinet and is very nice if you want to be able to close it up, like to make room for guests on an air bed or whatever. But I like to leave it opened out, and if I had a do-over, I'd put together my own from Ikea parts, with drawers and shelves on the bottom. On top my big cutting mat is spread out - trying to get it to flatten after a year and a half of being stored in a roll. The quilt on top is from my friendship group, and will probably go on a wall in the room.
This view shows the wall (on the right) where I plan to put Expedit shelves from Ikea, some open, some with those pull-out drawer/basket things. My goal for the closet is to have DH remove the doors and install shelves. His honey-do list is kind of long at the moment, so I'll be patient. This looks really tight in the picture. Actually, while not spacious, there's plenty of room to walk around the table and for the shelves to fit.
The relationship to the sewing table is shown here. At the bottom-left you can see my serger cabinet. It fits under the cutting table. I almost never use my serger because she doesn't like me, and the feeling is mutual. I hear they make friendlier versions now (mine is almost 20 years old - when they first came out and were popular), but we've had this mutual hate relationship going so long, I think I'll keep her. But she is NOT getting her own permanent, opened-out place in the studio. She may hide under the cutting table until called into action (which won't be very often), and be grateful that I haven't put her on Craig's List. I can just picture the ad. "Grumpy old serger, barely used............"
In the top-left there's the blank wall that will become my design wall, whenever I find it, packed away in boxes somewhere. My ironing board is behind the door to the room. I rarely use it because I keep a pressing mat (large enough for blocks and small projects) on my cutting table, or on the fold out part of my sewing cabinet.
It's going to be cozy but wonderful, I think. I'm pretty sure the trick is to only bring in the stuff that comfortably and neatly fits. How many projects do we really work on at once anyway? Well, if you're like me, quite a few, but more would get done with greater focus, LOL! I don't hand sew in my studio, so there's no need for a comfy chair. I hand stitch on the lanai or in the great-room while watching television in the evening sometimes.
There probably won't be more progress to report until next year. That's not far off, and I have a whole house to unpack. But do look for more updates later.
