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Friday, March 8, 2013

My Sewing Cabinet

We have a little house.  At least little for 4 people.  10 years ago we bought out house, and 1500 square feet was perfect for the two of us.  Enter two kiddos with all their toys and stuff.  Creative storage is key to our sanity! 

I dream of the day that I can have an entire room dedicated to sewing and crafting supplies, a nice wide, open space to spread out and leave a project out to finish the next day....however leaving things out for tiny fingers to find is not ideal.

While browsing craigslist one day, I found an armoire that housed a home office-type setup.  It had a yucky white-ish wood finish on it, but I definitely knew this was the piece of furniture to organize my sewing.  A few coats of shiny white paint later, and here she is:


The interior was black, so it was really dark on the inside (you can see the bottom part is black).  I had some paint left over from Drake's bedroom, so I painted most of the inside walls this lovely color, which brightened it up immensely.  It makes me smile every time I open it!  On the left door, I have a shoe organizer stuffed with every color of felt (for projects like Drake's Name Book), and some embroidery blanks like bibs in the bottom pocket. The bottom left shelf holds projects to be completed and my iron.


This was the perfect spot for my serger.  I hung a thread organizer on the back.  It keeps all my thread visible, and I love to glance over and see all the different colors of thread.  They are organized by color families, which makes the engineer/slightly OCD side of me very happy!  The upper shelf has embroidery thread, and a wood organizer from IKEA that I painted with the same blue.  This holds elastics, buttons, embroidery floss, sewing machine needles, etc.  A few beautiful books, and a glass vase that holds zippers and marking pencils.  My clear ruler is hung on a nail on the left wall, and the little white bin is for trash...threads, clippings, etc.  Since this is an office armoire, there are holes for all the cords to be threaded through to the back!


A shot behind the fold down table...my sewing maching fits perfectly on this shelf, and I slip a small, tabletop ironing board back there as well.


Fold the table down and Viola! Instant work station!  You can see I store the sewing machine pedal on the bottom shelf so I just have to pull it out and put it on the floor.


Office armoire, remember? So yay! Keyboard tray! This slides forward and I have all of my pins, scissors, seam gauges, etc etc etc in there for easy access. 


The machine slides out easily into place, and now I have an "L" shaped work station.  I can sit in my chair and swivel to each side to use the serger and machine.  I have a small OTT light that really helps brighten the area.


Under the table is a hanging file drawer.  I use this for patterns.  It's nice to separate them by type, makes it really easy to find things.  More books and machine manuals are on the shelves.


This is in my dining room, so I just borrow a chair and get to work! Also bonus, I can use the dining table for cutting and fits my huge cutting mat, which I slide behind the armoire to store. 


I just love that everything can be put back into place, the doors closed up, and this is what I'm left with...ahhhhh.

4 comments:

  1. That made my OCD side very happy! What a great use of space! I love how organized and functional it is! And I love how everything is hidden at the end!

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  2. I remember seeing this when I was over there... it's nice to see all the details. Love! You should definitely write more about your little organization tricks, some of us have a lot to learn. ;)

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  3. Thanks for this post and your photos. I recently received a very similar armoire from a friend and I've been pondering how to set it up. Your photos and comments are very helpful.

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