Studio/Office
State of the Studio
Do you remember when I was pondering if I should move my sewing studio? As soon as Ryan woke up that day I asked him – I just couldn’t wait – and he was totally ok with it. I dove straight into that switcheroo with gusto, let me tell you. Anytime I have a chance to move furniture around or rearrange a room I get excited.
It’s times like this when I have a pang of envy for full-time bloggers who can start a project and just tear through it in a few days. I started moving the sewing studio to the basement on New Years Eve weekend, and it took until this past weekend to get to 90% completion. Because this project would directly affect my business, we made it a top priority, but it still dragged out. Read the rest of this entry »
More Sewing Studio / Office Changes!
Woohoo! It’s Friday, and I can’t begin to tell you how glad I am. A nasty bug has been kicking my butt all week and I’m ready for some rest and relaxation. There’s only two things between me and my couch, and those things are a) work and b) showing you the rest of the changes I’ve made to my sewing room.
First, in case you missed my updated sewing table area in the last post:
Now for my updated sewing storage wall:
Here’s a reminder of how it looked before: Read the rest of this entry »
Sewing Corner: Storage & Decor Updates
Have you ever noticed that the best, most useful and lovable spaces in your homes are the ones that have evolved over time? I certainly feel that way. While it’s gratifying to collect inspiration and then execute a vision in one quick, dramatic before-and-after, the magazine-ready results may need to be tweaked after months of living with them.
Such was the case with my sewing studio/office/dressing room. With three crucial functions all occurring in this little 10′ x 12′ space, ever inch of the space needs to work as efficiently as possible.
After about 8 months of really working in my studio, I learned that some of my “great storage ideas” just didn’t work as efficiently as I needed them to.
Take, for example, my sewing corner. Here’s how it looked when I first put the space together last January:
And now:
Gosh, I think it’s a 100% improvement from January.
It’s funny, because at the time I put my sewing studio together, I was pretty pleased with the space. But now that I see the “before” and “after” photos side-by-side, I am a bit horrified at how I decorated / laid the space out in January.
First off, I had to change the setup of the sewing table. Read the rest of this entry »
Check Her Out: My Long-Awaited Secretary!
Are you wondering about the “sexy secretary” that I’ve been talking about on Twitter? Gotcha.
Sorry to disappoint, but when I said “sexy secretary” I wasn’t talking about Christina Hendricks’ character in Mad Men. I was talking about this gal right here:
Isn’t she pretty? She sure is a great change from the white Ikea desk I had before:
Maybe you remember the secretary and her companion, the little green chair, from this mood board that I created way back when, this past winter?
Well, I finally picked her up at my favorite furniture store, Just L (in Littleton, NH) this past June when I went up to help Melissa move. Yep, the awesome owner of the store had been holding it (and the green Thonet chair) for me ever since I spied it on their Facebook page last fall. But that’s a topic for another post.
Finding this secretary was fate, I tell you. Do you see how closely it’s wedged into the space between my window and the corner wall? It fits with literally NO room to spare.
See? A custom-built cabinet wouldn’t have a tighter fit.
Anyway, boy was I thrilled to finally bring this baby home and put her to work in my office. She offered up some much-needed storage, holding my office supplies in one drawer, my electronics jumble in another, and my rarely-used binders and books in the topmost (and hardest to access) drawer.
Up top, the storage situation keeps going. I love how secretaries always have great cubbies to stash things in – in this case I was able to create file storage in one, hold books and binders in another, journals in a tiny one, and photos on the top shelf.
See how my computer is pulled out from the shelves in the photo below? That’s just to show you the extra cubbies. The plan was to cut those bottom cubbies out, so that the computer could fit back in the compartment, but for now I decided to just place it in front of them instead. I can’t bring myself to alter the shelves.
But if I want to close the secretary, I can simply remove my computer ( love my Mac, everything is contained in the monitor) and close the front like so:
I was especially thrilled by her sleek, modern lines – I’ve seen plenty of secretaries, but they’re all so old-fashioned and fussy, with tons of curves and embellishments and brass pulls. But not this one. She needs a name.
Small-Space Decorating Tip
Secretaries are one of the best pieces of furniture you can invest in if you live in a small place. (Or heck, even a not-so-small place, like my rancher.) Seriously, they rock – they offer tons of storage, a good writing (or typing) surface, couple with the ability to be closed up to hide the mess when guests are around.
For example, say you need your guest room to do double-duty as your office. If you have a secretary, which only takes up a small portion (2-3 feet) of the wall space, then you can plop your laptop in there, decoratively store your books, files, etc, in all the cubbies, and call it a day. Then, when your guests come to stay, you fold the desk surface shut, and offer your guests use of at least one of the drawers below.
And speaking of small spaces, I promise I’ll have the rest of Melissa’s studio apartment “after” tour next week. I just didn’t have the time I wanted to devote to writing the posts this week. My shop has been busy – which is awesome – and hopefully I’ll have some new items to show off in a week or two!
Have an awesome weekend!
PS: You can find links to all the steps of the room’s makeover if you visit the house tour here, then scroll down to the section on the studio/office.
For the first time in my life: I love my closet!
I finally finished my closet makeover. And I love it. Finally, for the first time in my entire adult life, I feel like I have a closet that holds everything I need it too, keeps everything organized perfectly, and is easy to use. Only took me 10 years and 8 moves to be able to say . . .
I love my closet!
It’s not a fancy walk-in closet, but it’s fine. Its size forces me to only own clothes and shoes that I love.
Let’s make this quick:
I changed the layout of the front. (Last Friday when I shared my love of Elfa shelving it wasn’t done.) Now I have two complete bars of short hanging space going across the 4-ft opening. Above the hanging space I have boxes for sewing storage. Notice that below I no longer have my two-tiered shoe storage - it wasn’t working well.
Most of the shoes now live in an over-door shoe organizer which hangs on the wall in the space between the closet opening and the way back of the closet. I realized it was a great way to make use of the space, while leaving enough room for me to stand in there looking at the back of the closet.
Speaking of the back of the closet, all my dresses now hang back there. Because I didn’t want to use up a ton of space, I found a way to double-up the long dresses and skirts so that they only hang as long as a short dress. That leaves the bottom space open for me to easily slide out the boxes which store my cut fabrics for products-in-process.
The top two shelves hold purses and more sewing storage.
As for my belts, sunglasses, scarves, and other accessories – they live on the back of my studio door, in another hanging shoe organizer. And the hooks on the wall behind the door hold my pjs and my purse.
And that’s how I store my stuff in my heavenly little space that I call my Studio & Dressing Room.
The end.
Have a great weekend! Are you doing anything fun?
Shared at Decor Chick’s “Anything Goes” link party!
Studio Closet Makeover (aka Elfa vs. ClosetMaid)
Last stop on the studio makeover? My closet area. Because it’s not just a sewing studio, it’s also my “dressing room.”
I”m about to go crazy with TMI on the closet installation, so if you aren’t that interested feel free to skim along. But I want to make this detailed for two reasons: to help any other renters or landlords who may be considering closet renovations, and (more importantly) because we forgot to ask our landlord before doing this – so this post will serve as an explanation.
Dear Brian, aka Landlord Extraordinaire,
We love your fabulously renovated house, with the luxurious kitchen and bathrooms, and nice new windows, and new efficient furnace and HVAC units. In fact we’re looking forward to renewing the lease to stay another year.
Unfortunately, we did not love the design of the bedroom closets. You know by now that we always ask permission before making changes, but we kind of slipped up and truly forgot to ask before completely redoing them. You see, when I get excited about a design idea, I often dive eagerly ahead. Usually Ryan keeps me in line, saying something along the lines of “that’s a great idea, but do you reall need to stop everything and do it right now, in the middle of dinner?” That didn’t happen this time, thus I blame Ryan.
But before you freak out, please read on – because I’m about to make a case for this that is more air-tight than a submarine. Now I’m going to revert to writing this as a blog post rather than a letter.
When our rental house was remodeled prior to move-in, the closets were updated with new ClosetMaid shelving. After living with it for a while, Ryan and I both concluded that the ClosetMaid system is not the best choice for a rental home.
Here’s how the installation of ClosetMaid works. For each shelf / hanging bar you want to install, you must:
- Drill a million holes in the wall.
- Install a million big plastic anchors.
- Screw shelf into wall, hoping it went up level.
My closet had two shelves and one hanging bar. The closet was 8′ wide, and those shelves & bar ran across the entire 8′ of the closet. However, the opening was only 5′ wide, which meant that a long 3′ of hanging space & shelving was inaccessible in the left side of the closet. THe closet is only about 2 feet deep, and the shelves were 21″ deep, so it was pretty much impossible to squeeze into that 3-foot recessed area. And I needed to use that space.
I figured out that the most efficient use of the closet was:
- Two-tiered hanging space in the 4-foot-wide open area
- 20-inch-deep storage shelves (for out-of-season clothes, etc) going up the wall in the harder-to-reach back corner of the closet. (The section to the left in the above photo.)
Because the ClosetMaid system required that each shelf be installed separately, with the use of a gazillion anchors, I decided to install the Elfa Easy-Hang system from the Container Store instead. But before we could install it, I had to:
- Remove the old shelves.
Do you SEE all those anchors?
- Drill / pry out all the anchors (see below). The shelves are secured with big metal pins that go into the anchors, not screws, so you can’t just unscrew the fasteners.
- Patch the million holes in the wall.
- Re-paint the closet wall. Because I had to paint the wall, I decided to carry the color from the room into the closet.
Painting Tip: Wait until the paint is dry before allowing the feline inspectors to do the final run-through.
Now here’s how the installation of the Elfa Easy-Hang system from the Container Store works. The Elfa system hangs off a top track, which is the only part you actually have to screw into the wall. Therefore, you:
- Position the “top track” up against the top of the wall, ensuring it is level, and trace (onto the wall) the places where the screws and anchors must go.
- Drill holes with a 3/8″ drill bit.
- Install Elfa Anchors. (I do use the pricier Elfa ones just because I trust them more.)
To hang Elfa on this wall, it only took those 8 anchors at the top. A nice improvement from the more than 30 used by ClosetMaid!
- Install the Elfa Top Track by screwing it into the anchors you’ve just installed.
- Then, simply hook the “Elfa Easy Hang Standards” onto the the top track, and click your shelves into place on the “Standards” wherever you want. Here it is installed:
Remember, the ONLY holes I had to put in the wall were for that top track. The rest of the system hangs off that top track with the “Standards” flush against the wall. It’s very, very sturdy.
Here’s another shot of the installed system. Why is it so perfect for a rental home? If a future tenant wants to change the shelving, they simply take the shelves off the Standards and click them into a different place on the Standards.
In the end I made the bottom hanging shelf shorter than the top, so that some of the top hanging space could be used for long hanging, like dresses. I didn’t install the shelves in the back, left portion of the closet yet. I wanted to think on it before making that part of the purchase.
And it’s a good thing, because this weekend I’m going to change the design a bit. I’m going to convert the front area to all “short” hanging, and put a hanging bar for long dresses in the back portion of the closet, with shelves above and below it. Like I said, I think that will be the best use of the space.
In conclusion, I think the Elfa Easy-Hang closet system from the Container Store is the best option for closets in both rental and owned homes. It offers superior functionality that can be easily changed and reconfigured with no damage to walls. So if you have a different tenant every year, and each tenant wants a different layout of shelves and bars, they can move things around without removing anchors and drilling new holes. It’s not the most inexpensive system to install initially, but I think it’s worth every penny.
Speaking of cost, the total cost for my two tiers of hanging space up front, and long hanging / shelves in the back would have been $300. However, I bought most of the components during the Container Store’s bi-annual Elfa sale, and saved 30%. So $200 for a totally functional closet? It still took a chunk out of my wallet, but it was worth it. After all, you’re more likely to put your clothes away where they belong when you have a closet that’s easy to use.
5/10/2011 Update: I finished the closet, which now looks like this. It’s awesome, read more here.
PS: This was completed in February. I dreaded having to explain it all, that’s why it took so long to share. But after I install the rest of the system this weekend, I’m making a video tour of the entire studio makeover, and then I’ll finally be done talking about this room.
PSS: Come back later (or Saturday) to find out the winner of the 2011 Redneck Yard of the Year contest!
Posted in How to . . ., Organize It!, Rental Remedies, Studio Makeover, Studio/Office | 
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Studio Makeover: Computer Corner
Holy crap! The last time I talked to you about my studio makeover it was Feb 3. To quote Hugh Grant in Notting Hill . . . “Whoops-a-daisy!” Let’s wrap this baby up this week, shall we?
Three months ago I tackled my studio, transforming it from a jumbled baby-blue mish-mash into a fun and inspiring space chock-full of storage and functionality.
With fabric storage installed, jewelry and clothes storage assembled, and a sewing corner created, there were only a few more corners left to tackle: the computer / desk area and the closet.
Here’s what happened in my computer corner: not a lot.
Nothing was new with the placement of the existing Ikea desk & drawer in that corner, but I added a few framed photos on the wall.
It was tough getting inspired with this corner, because in just a few months I’ll be obtaining this mid-century modern secretary desk from our friends at Just L Modern Antiques in New Hampshire, as well as (hopefully) a nice Thonet lime-green chair. Yes, I love these pieces SO much that I’m driving to Littleton, NH in June. What can I say – I’ll go to great lengths to get fab furniture.
The furniture I’ll drive 550 miles for:
Pardon the sketchy outlines...my first time "photoshopping" the background out of the images!
Above the desk, some photos of friends, a schedule, and some inspirational art keep the space cheerful as we wait for the secretary.
This card that I found in Nashville reads:
“If you hold on to the handle, she said, it’s easier to maintain the illusion of control. But it’s more fun if you just let the wind carry you.”
A good reminder to not always try and be in control of everything. :) I’d like to blow up a copy of it to about 8×10 or 11×14 in the future.
To create the fabric-backed photos, I wrapped the frame backs with fabric. Because I didn’t feel like getting out the ModPodge, I used some iron-on hem tape (Stitch Witchery) to anchor the fabric in place on both sides of the board. A few seconds with the steamy iron was all it took.
I have no idea why I used hem tape and not just regular ole’ tape:
I love how it turned out, providing a nice coordinated pop of color.
Down on the desk, beside my computer, rests a small tray of items I like to keep handy. Actually, it’s not even a tray – it’s the lid of a box of Godawful imported cookies. But the box was as gorgeous (and sturdy) as the candies were awful! It corrals everything that would otherwise clutter my desk: Netflix DVDs, bills to pay, my journal, etc.
Ever since I started collecting the vintage jars for sewing storage, I’ve been on a flowers-in-jars kick. Can’t get enough of the casual but fresh look!
So that’s a wrap on my computer corner. Tomorrow I’ll share the closet, which is still in a state of limbo as I’m not thrilled with how my plan worked out in there. And on Friday I’ll share a video tour of the space, as I head to sunny Florida. Amen.
Ironing is Fun Again (& a product peek)
Ironing is fun again, thanks to City Chic Country Mouse, a mother/daughter sewing and blogging duo who aim to inject some joy into the otherwise world of mundane household tasks. They’re having a Spring Cleaning Sale over in their Etsy shop, and I couldn’t help but snag a cute new ironing board cover.
It arrived just a few days later, and it was wrapped so adorably that it felt like Christmas or my birthday all over again.
The item was wrapped in tissue, secured with a cute little mouse sticker, tied with a fabric strip (that coordinated with the product), and topped off with a hand-written “thank-you” note.
After I opened it I reassembled it so I could take a photo.
I peeled back the precious wrapping to find the ironing board cover neatly folded, and topped with a small envelope.
And what was inside that envelope? Their super cute business card, a mini-card with a coupon code, and a spare piece of fabric (which I can only assume is for patching the cover, etc, if need be). If you guys ask me, these ladies take the cake with product packaging.
As for the actual item I ordered? Well it fit my ironing board perfectly, thanks to its sturdy drawstring closure. I’m happy as a clam now that my ironing board has a new look. Did I mention that my old cover was stained, and so worn that the elastic no longer worked, and after I last washed it I had to hand-sew it in place to hold it on the ironing board? Goodbye, ugly!
Pardon the poor lighting, this shot was snapped at midnight.
Though you can’t see it here, the cover coordinates well with the colorful fabrics I used in my studio makeover. All the bright colors help to keep me energized when I’m working late at night.
Speaking of working in my studio, would you like a peek at a design I made last night? I love it! This pleated design will be for lumbar pillows, and I will have coordinating square pillows and cat purr pads to go with it.
This is an example of what I love most with sewing. The creation of designs and the piecing together of colors and fabrics and textures. Yum. Is it 5 o’clock yet? My fingers are itchin’ to get back to stitchin’.
