Room of the Day: A Dream Sewing Studio for Creative Crafting
A couple make better use of their dead attic space by turning it into a dedicated sewing room
When Mandy and Matt Brown were building a home in Salt Lake City, they noticed that their blueprints called for what was essentially a false dormer and dead attic space above the garage. Matt, a contractor with Beehive State Builders, realized that by framing the above-garage space differently, they could turn that empty square footage into a useful room. “It’s actually off of our master bedroom,” Mandy says. The couple decided that the best use of the space would be to build a sewing and craft room for Mandy and the kids.
At the center of the room is a fabric cutting table, with cubbies where Mandy stores her fabric. The colorful bolts are wrapped around comic book backer boards, acid-free pieces of card stock that she buys online. “When it comes off the bolt at Jo-Ann’s, if you fold it one more time, they wrap perfectly around those,” Mandy says.
She made the cutting table by placing two basic cube units from Ikea back to back and putting a piece of Corian left over from one of Beehive State Builders’ projects on top. She keeps a cutting mat on the table to protect the top, and she uses a rotary cutter — a tool kind of like a pizza cutter — to cut her fabric. The table is about 32 inches high, just the right size for Mandy to stand and reach all the way across it as she cuts.
“I used to do all my sewing at my dining room table, but I had to clean it up all the time,” she says. “Having a place where it can just be out, I do so much more of it.”
Cutting table: Kallax series, Ikea
She made the cutting table by placing two basic cube units from Ikea back to back and putting a piece of Corian left over from one of Beehive State Builders’ projects on top. She keeps a cutting mat on the table to protect the top, and she uses a rotary cutter — a tool kind of like a pizza cutter — to cut her fabric. The table is about 32 inches high, just the right size for Mandy to stand and reach all the way across it as she cuts.
“I used to do all my sewing at my dining room table, but I had to clean it up all the time,” she says. “Having a place where it can just be out, I do so much more of it.”
Cutting table: Kallax series, Ikea
Mandy estimates that the furniture and decor for the sewing room cost under $1,000, not including the sewing machine and serger.
On the opposite wall from her desk, Mandy has a dressmaker’s form that is more decorative than functional. Though she uses the space the most, the couple’s children also use the room for craft projects.
“It actually has the best view in our house,” she says. “I can see my kids walking up from school. I spend a lot of time in there — a lot more than I ever thought I would.” On an average week, Mandy spends maybe 15 hours in the room working on her projects. But as Christmastime rolls around and she ramps up projects for gift giving, she spends more like 30 hours a week here.
Your turn: Do you have a creative project space at home? If so, we’d love to see it! Please share in the Comments below.
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On the opposite wall from her desk, Mandy has a dressmaker’s form that is more decorative than functional. Though she uses the space the most, the couple’s children also use the room for craft projects.
“It actually has the best view in our house,” she says. “I can see my kids walking up from school. I spend a lot of time in there — a lot more than I ever thought I would.” On an average week, Mandy spends maybe 15 hours in the room working on her projects. But as Christmastime rolls around and she ramps up projects for gift giving, she spends more like 30 hours a week here.
Your turn: Do you have a creative project space at home? If so, we’d love to see it! Please share in the Comments below.
More
A Stitch in Time: Creative Sewing Spaces
11 Tips to Get the Creative Space You Crave
Who lives here: Mandy and Matt Brown and their kids
Location: Salt Lake City
Once the house was built, Mandy went to work setting up and decorating her new craft room on a frugal budget. Most of the pieces are DIY hacks, including some upgrades to basic Ikea pieces.
In the Ikea bookshelves at right, Mandy stores patterns, scrapbook paper, bins of beads, buttons and elastic, and bits of fabric and leather. Above the shelving units, she added a free-standing wall shelf, where she keeps fabric and pattern books.
The desk at the far end of the room is also from Ikea. Mandy’s sewing machine is on one side, her serger on the other. She finds that having just one chair is most efficient — she simply rolls between the machines. On the wall above the desk is her stash of colorful threads.
Shelves and desk: Kallax series, Ikea