House Move: My Sewing Room Progress

Of all the rooms in our new house, my sewing room is the one I love the most. Before we moved in, it was used as a bedroom for a little girl (see above), but since we don’t have one of those, I claimed the room as my own. We’ve got an attic bedroom already to use as the spare room, although we are debating swapping to have that as room (I want to stay in ours, but we’ll see!), so this one was going spare. I didn’t want it to end up becoming another junk room, so sewing room it was!
We’ve barely managed to unpack half of our stuff from the old house yet, most of it is still in the garage, but I made this room a priority and demanded all my sewing stuff be brought into the house and my new stuff built before anything else. Don’t worry though as Ben agreed with me for once! I think he thought it would stop me moaning at him and making a mess elsewhere in the house. Plus, he’s said that’s his favourite room in the house at the moment too – winning all round!
As is probably obvious from the title, my sewing room is still a work in progress and probably will be for a good while! I need a little bit more storage space yet and I’m intending to get some shelves up at some point too, but I wanted to share my progress with it as we went along. It doesn’t actually currently look exactly like this any more as I’ve had to add a double rail of clothing (against the wall you can’t see) since we don’t have a wardrobe at the moment, plus the ironing board is now set up against the window and will probably stay there so that I can turn straight from my sewing machine to it quickly. But this is what I have so far:

It took us a while to decide on what to do about a desk or table. Originally we were planning to move our old sofa up there (still haven’t decided on what to do with that, it’s currently in the empty dining room!) along with the old dining table (we’re getting a new, slightly bigger one), but I thought it would be too square for the room (it’s this one). In the end, we spotted a desk on Pinterest in a craft room and loved the look of it. Ben wants to get an iMac (so the other chair at the desk is for him), and I’m agreeing only if he can get one fairly cheap when we’ve saved a bit more money because it’ll look good there and make it easier for me to find anything I need to look up while sewing, as well as for us to be able to do work at. We got the Micke desk from IKEA in the end since it’s long enough for both us, has plenty of room for fabric, but is nice and slim looking still. It’s not the sturdiest of pieces, but will definitely do for its job. I’m then keeping my sewing machine (Singer Brilliance 6180), sewing box (gift from Fran) and cutting mat out on the top, plus all my sewing essentials in the drawer in front of me so I can grab them quickly including: paper scissors, fabric scissors, mini scissors, rulers, pencils, air erasable pen, pins, bobbins, threads, needles and seam rippers (all the things I’ve discovered are necessary for sewing!). I’ve also added a lamp to the side of my sewing machine, but I guess you’ll be able to see that in my next update, whenever that will be!
Looking up, we’ve got an amazing new light shade. Our old house had all the light shades already in place except one, so we’re having to build up a collection of our own now. Ben won’t let me get away with crazy colourful ones in all the rooms, but this room is mine so he succumbed to the lampshade! He does have a thing about light bulbs though, so has already been through the whole place sticking in energy saving LED bulbs – I’ll let him have that I suppose! Anyway, this light shade – would it surprise you if I told you it was from Wilkos and only £10?! Yep, I didn’t know they did awesome home stuff too, but apparently they do – I’ll be getting more stuff there, I promise you!

The wall was originally decorated with a lot of wall stickers, as you can see in the top photo, as was our single bedroom. Ben’s mum spent a whole day cleaning the walls throughout the house and peeling those stickers off one by one (not as easy as it sounds!) but we decided to leave the tree stickers on (behind Maeve the dress form) because they were quite pretty and looked fabric-y! Also please try not to notice that Maeve is strategically trying to distract your gaze from the pile of stuff behind her – there are a few boxes of unopened summer clothes still lurking there, along with some more sewing stuff that hasn’t been sorted yet, sshh!
So on this side of the room is my favourite new piece of furniture, and something I’ve wanted forever – box shelves! Okay, I’ve never known the proper name for these, but I’ve always loved the look of them and been begging Ben to let me have some. Finally, I spotted them in IKEA – Kallax storage units. We decided to go for white so that in the future we can add some boxes/door fronts to them in different or bright colours. I think they’re the perfect way to keep my sewing stuff organised and am hoping to get another set too. Just because I’m super proud of my shelves, I want to tell you my organised order of them, so from top left: sewing books/magazines; unused cotton dressmaking fabric; unused jersey/stretch fabric; empty My Little Boxes used to store elastics, bias binding, extra scissors, extra pins, glue gun etc. Then from bottom left: bowl for fabric scraps plus two tins of ribbons, ric rac and bias binding (all gifted from an elderly family member who found them at a car boot sale); my folder of patterns/traced pattern pieces plus my corset making set (in progress!); upholstery fabric; clothes to be fixed or reused for fabric.
Then on top of my shelving, I’m keeping this gorgeous decorative suitcase (gift from my parents) which is currently storing a few as yet unused Christmas gifts, but will one day store more sewing stuff, plus the little decorative mannequin thingy which was a gift from my aunt and uncle (before I started sewing, but perfect for the room, don’t you think?!).
I’m also keeping hold of the prints that come with My Little Box to frame and add to the wall, and I’ve got a massive Disney’s Steamboat Willie (this one, but a lot bigger) leaned up on the shelves at the moment and ready to be hung on the wall eventually. On the wall behind Maeve is a sewing plaque I won in Char’s giveaway a while ago which was just waiting for its pride of place on the wall, and at the other side is one of those word plaque thingys (what do you even call those?!) from the parents again.
I can’t wait to develop this room even further – I’m not sure it will ever be finished, it will probably always be a work in progress, but I love it so far! It’s a really light and airy space, plus it has my Sonos speaker (gift from Ben – I know!) on the windowsill now, so I can shut myself off in there with my Saving Mr Banks soundtrack (it’s the only thing I sew to!), not be attacked by cats, and enjoy sewing!