A Sewing Room

I’ve been working very hard on and off the past two weeks to turn a catch-all room upstairs into a sewing room.  I didn’t take official “before” pictures, but here’s a shot of the room when I first starting bring home my late mother-in-law’s sewing things.

The first thing that I had to do was move some of the furniture in this room into another location in the house.  The wash stand, coat rack, desk, dressing table, and small table full of photos found a new home in the second bedroom upstairs.

Can I tell you how many teenage hours I spent at the dressing table?  Did any of you have a make-up mirror like this one?
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The mess definitely got worse before it got better.
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Here it is, nice and neat.  Can I tell you how relieved I was when the mess was gone??  I can’t stand a mess!  I have plans for making the room a prettier space, but I’m tired and this will do for now.

The filing cabinet on the left is a new addition to the room.  I’ll share how I rehabbed it in another post.  The two matching cabinets were my mother-in-law’s.  The smaller of the two has four drawers for storage.  I’ll show you what’s inside another day.  The larger table houses a machine and has a ton of storage.  The small white plastic cabinet contains thread.

The sofa was already in the room.  It will be nice to have this in the room when I need to take a break.  Plus, if we have multiple guests, this room could still serve as a bedroom.  Mama helped me to fix up the trunk when I moved into my first college apartment.  Unfortunately, I got paint on it at some point.  Believe it or not, the trunk is probably getting close to one hundred years old.  One of these days I will put a different covering on it or maybe paint it.
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The sewing table pulls out and unfolds into a giant work station.  When I use it, I’ll pull the rolling chair out of the corner and into use.
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The rocking chair was mine as a child and I really have no other place for it.  The cat was a gift from my late brother.

The top of the filing cabinet holds various quilting rulers.  I already had several of them and now I have enough for our entire neighborhood.  The two red cubes behind the rulers hold some of my mother-in-law’s unfinished projects.  Maybe I’ll finish them one of these days.
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The wall where you see the small wooden chair will house a cutting table.  I haven’t yet moved it from my father-in-law’s house.  Mr. SP made the bookcase, the pottery was Granny’s, and the embroidery was in my brother’s nursery.
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This dresser is full of sewing supplies.  The sewing box was Granny’s and the serger was my mother-in-law’s.  I have not a clue as to how to operate a serger, but I hope to learn.
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The little door to the left leads to attic storage.  There’s not much room back there for anything else!
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Soon I’ll show you more details on this room.  It’s really going to be nice to sew here and be able to shut the door on the mess.  I used to sew in our dining room and the mess in there couldn’t be hidden.

This was one project that I was very glad to check off of my “to do” list.

9 Comments

  1. Paula, you are just a whirlwind! You get so much done that I am totally amazed. I bet you get a day’s work out of your students as well! Enjoyed the tour.

  2. I looks great and what a great spot for inspiration! I had to laugh at the makeup mirror–I’m pretty sure everybody on my college dorm floor and in my sorority house had that mirror, back in the days when we didn’t have our own private bathroom, it was essential!

  3. What a great space!!! You have spacious work stations and good storage. I am officially jealous. 😉

  4. Good for you, Paula! What a great room to have!

    Don’t you (or maybe your mom) have some old patterns? I’m thinking that those, or even color photocopies of those, would make great art for the walls of this room. 🙂

    Can I come sew at your house?

  5. Wow! That looks GREAT! I am so totally jealous of your space and storage options. That Mr. SP sure is handy, isn’t he? Congrats on getting it all taken care of so quickly. It would’ve taken me a year and a half to get that done! Great job!

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