Recently, I posted about a fabulous inspiration room with vague-ish plans to turn one of our tiny spare bedrooms into a sewing room of my own. I’ve given it a bit more thought, and I think that I might actually be able to start turning those vague-ish plans into a reality!
Here’s the deal. We’re kindofsortofmaybepossibly considering putting our house on the market sooner rather than later. Maybe. And while it seems silly to do a complete room overhaul at this point, it makes sense to turn a room that seems overcrowded and un-useable into a space that a potential buyer would find useful. Right now, the layout of the room is not very functional. Behold! My terrible floor plan drafting skills! Nothing is to scale! (click to make it bigger)
Yeah…two desks, an off-center window, and not a lot of floor space. I started brainstorming ideas for getting one of the desks out of there (namely, the one whose current job is simply holding our cat’s food and water bowls) because that would free up a lot of floor space. I’ve already hidden the cat box in the closet in this room, so I figured, why not lower the shelf in that closet and put her food and water in there too? It could be a little “kitty station” (food and water placed far enough away from the –covered– cat box so as not to pose a health problem, of course).
With that decided, I thought next about the overall flow of the room. I think that pushing my sewing table / desk # 2 against the wall opposite the closet would make the most sense, and free up the most floor space. Then I started thinking about flanking desk #2 with affordable cubby-type shelving from Target for my fabric stash and other odds and ends like this, but taller:
Also, since our closet doors in that room are in need of a major overhaul, I”m thinking of ditching the old closet doors, painting the interior of the closet and using a curtain as a closet “door” like Jennifer did over at I Heart Organizing:
Seriously - how gorgeous is that? I mean….the closet before the curtain was amazing…but the curtain is a great addition (and can be closed so the contents are not constantly on display!) And that ghost chair? I die.
Anywho….behold: the new floor plan! (again, click to make it bigger)
Ahhh, do you see all of that floor space? The filing cabinet will be moved over into the corner so that our cat can still use it to climb up to her window perch (seriously, if you knew how much time she spent up there you would understand the importance of the perch staying put!) I’m still wondering about what to put on the long wall opposite the window — maybe a bench or something? Or maybe I’ll hold my horses and wait to see how much space I have. 
Of course, no room makeover (especially a sewing room makeover) would be complete without a few fabrics. I’m keeping my options open, but right now I’m loving these prints from Dena Fishbein’s “Tea Garden”:
Normally, I tend to lean more towards neutrals (or pinks!) but I’m feeling a relaxed, blue/yellow scheme for this room for some reason. I’ll probably do a window valance, chair cushion for my sewing chair, and curtains/tie-backs for the closet.
So, that’s the plan! I’m not sure how far we’ll get with this before the holidays, but I hope to have it accomplished sometime this winter. And with WI winters being notoriously long, I’m sure that we’ll have plenty of time on our hands….
