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Sunday, April 22, 2012

A Sewing Room Overhaul {Happy Birthday Mom}

This weekend has been so wonderful, and it's only Sunday morning!!  Hooray!  The weather is finally showing some sun, and getting over 60 degrees here in Oregon.... it's one of those "there light at the end of the tunnel" feeling when spring starts showing up around here.

I've been getting so much done around the house, and can't wait to share everything.  But for today, I am going to share a little present that I did for my Mom's birthday!


Her Birthday was on April 6th, and my dad had planned to quickly whisk her away to Portland for the night so go see some friends.  So I knew it was my chance to get into her sewing storage room and get some organization done.  My Dad was even gracious enough to fund it, THANKS DAD!! 

This is not a glamorous redo by any means, but I was headed for function only.  That way if she likes the layout of the room, then her and I can get together and give the space a face lift.   So with that said, the pictures are nothing fancy!

Here is what we started with.  My mom is an amazing seamstress, but she just had no room to work.  Or so she thought.  This room is really the sun room, but she started to take it over for sewing, which then led to and ironing room, then to the cats room, then the bunny's room.  You know how that goes right?  You have a room that turns out to be the bottomless pit... YEP, that's this room!

Notice the heaping pile of ironing..... I'd say she was a little behind.... 

This view is looking into the room from the doorway into the house.  The door on the left goes out to the patio.

Here is the view from one end of the room.  It's a long narrow room, so it makes the flow a tough situation.

And here is the view from standing at the back door.  WOWSERS!

Take note of the bunny cage, the litter box, and the mass heaps of fabric and sewing notions scattered everywhere. 

How she ever managed in here I will never know!


On Friday night I got right to work.  I emptied the entire room of it's contents, leaving only the table!  What a task.  My sister did come over to help me which was great!!

Once I had sorted the contents, we made a list of needed organization supplies, and headed out to Wal-Mart.  We got back and immediately got to organizing, and moving stuff back in.


I purchased a tall cheap-o bookshelf to use for the main storage piece.  I had planned on buying a cube shelf, but who knew Wal-Mart did not carry those? 

Oh well, I do love this shelf, and I know I can make it pretty at a later date!

This shelf now houses all of her supplies, and fabric.  

I got these fun frosted lidless totes there as well.



Here is her fabric stash, so well organized!  I will share a tutorial on how I created the fabric bolts!

She had so much more room to add to her stash..... I am sure she wont mind that.

Here is a closer look of what I placed inside the totes.....

 Zippers & Seam Binding
 Threads
Patterns!












Folding the fabric actually took the most time.  Other than that, it was trying to find good homes for the other things that no longer we welcome in the sewing room.  

On her corner shelves I used the existing jars to hold seam binding and ribbon scraps, buttons, bobbins and Velcro.


On her work table I created a mason jar organizer for all of the essential tools



We also brought in this odd bar/table/desk thing that we had in our office.  It has leaves that fold out for more space, and is the perfect height for cutting fabric.


Here is the final product of organization:



So what do you think?

From this:

To this:

In less that 24 hours, and 5 kids running around!!

She was so surprised, and LOVES the layout.  Now next time we will do the fun re-vamp, because as you saw, it needs a good face lift!!

Thank you for stopping by and visiting my blog.  Be sure to check out all of the parties I am linked up to by clicking here!

37 comments:

  1. Wow, what an amazing difference!!!! You are so organized and I love how you did the bolts of fabric! Can't wait to see the face lift!

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  2. You did a great job! Now you need to come to my house and fix up my sewing room.... :)

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  3. WOW, I wish someone would have come and done my room!

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  4. Wow, can you come to my house? :) You should be a professional organizer!

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  5. How great to have things all tidy. I'm sure your mom just loves it! I was over at my mom's last week and needed to sew something for my dad, and it was a disaster finding all the supplies. She has things in every room of the house for sewing. Maybe a little organization makeover will be in order soon as well. :)

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  6. That is one amazing makeover and obviously a labor of love. Great job.

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  7. Wow you were in the ZONE! Your creativity won't be blocked for sure....you're going to just oooze projects :)

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  8. Great job on the room! Thanks so much for linking up at Jillify It!

    Hope you have a fabulous week!

    Jill
    www.jillifyit.com

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  9. Stopping by from Not Just a Housewife. Can't believe you did that in one day! Things like that are the best gifts :) I'm you're newest follower! Hope you'll check out my blog!

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  10. Your mom must have been thrilled! Thanks for sharing at Beautify it Monday!

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  11. looks great! What a nice gift!

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  12. This is great! I love the jars of buttons and such! I need to do that with my stuff!

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  13. You are so sweet to do this for your mom. I would love to have a room just for sewing. For now my kitchen table will have to do.

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  14. What a great improvement. That must have been a lot of work. I'm at full energy in the morning - by night time I'm just looking for my bed. You're obviously totally different because that's when you got started!

    A lovely birthday surprise for your mom...

    Elisabeth @ http://treasuringthemoments.net

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  15. You did a wonderful job. How sweet are you?! What a wonderful gift.

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  16. This is awesome! Will you please come and organize my space?? I know you made your mom very happy with this!

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  17. Oh my gosh! I really love the way you overhauled this room!
    I have a very small sewing/craft area also and have been struggling to find a way to organize it properly so that I feel comfortable and it looks good.
    You did an awesome job!
    So glad I found you from the Link-up Tuesday from Pink Cricut.
    I am now a follower!
    If you get a chance, come check out my blog also!
    Take Care!
    Lisa H.
    lisastuf.blogspot.com

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  18. What a great job!! It looks amazing!! I wish I had a "real" sewing space;)

    I am a new follower, I hope you can stop by my blog sometime:)

    Shannon@SewSweetCottage

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  19. You did an amazing job! I need you at my house, my whole house...!

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  20. Awesome job! That is an amazing transformation. I believe you and I think alike, because I suspect we came up with the same idea for fabric storage. Here's mine:
    http://straddlingthegap.blogspot.com/2012/04/diy-fabric-shelf-storage.html

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  21. Great job with this! And very sweet of you to do this for her! Working in an organized craft room feels SO much nicer!

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  22. Wow! I am amazed at what you did to this room! I never thought to use mason jars to storing the sewing essentials. I have a smaller desk space that I sew on so I need very space effect was to store sewing supplies. I think I'll do that for me room!

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  23. I think I should tell you when my birthday is. My room doesn't look like either of the two pics you showed. It's somewhere in the middle.:)

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  24. You are a sweet sweet daughter! It turned out great, too! Thanks for sharing with us this week!

    Take care,

    Trish

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  25. You did such an amazing job!! That was so sweet of you to do that for your Mom. I can only imagine the look on her face. I wish my Mom was more into sewing and I would love to do this for her. Maybe I will so she will be more inspired to sew.

    Stopping by from Serenity Now linky party and a follower.

    Here is what I shared this week: http://craftybrooklynarmywife.blogspot.ca/2012/04/another-coat-for-holly.html

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  26. Looks great. Thanks for sharing this with us this week at the Sunday Round Up Link Party.
    See you next week,
    Rose @ http://www.arosiesweethome.com/

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  27. Great job. When will you be over? Thanks for sharing at this week's BFF Open House!

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  28. Looks wonderful! I need an over haul in my sewing room.
    Thanks for sharing at Sunday Round Up.
    xoxo
    Heather

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  29. So awesome and what a great gift for your mom you ROCK!!

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  30. Fab job!! :) So organized and pretty!

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  31. You are such a great daughter, I'm sure your mom loved it very much!

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  32. Wow what a difference and so organized! Thanks for linking up last week at Whimsy Wednesday!

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  33. Loved the room-gift. It was one of the projects I featured this week from the Piece of Cake Linky party. Thanks for linking up.

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  34. So jealous of your organization! My graft stuff is overflowing and chaotic!

    We are running a Before and After Link party to support Habitat for Humanity, with a chance to be featured on other big blogs and win gift cards. Would love if you entered! http://www.oneprojectcloser.com/2012-before-after-series/

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