Friday, January 6, 2012

Sewing Nook Makeover -- Planning

Well, I decided to re-sign my lease for another year which means another 14 months in my apartment.  I LOVE my place and am so happy to be staying longer!  Plus, making this decision meant I could feel good about making a few changes I'd been contemplating.

The first thing i did was rearrange my apartment -- AGAIN! I'm somewhat indecisive on a furniture layout, if that wasn't obvious already.  It's back to the way it was from the very beginning with a few additions, but all that is for another post and another day. For now, know that it looks mostly like this once again.


Once the furniture swap was done, I set my sights on the sewing nook. I've been spending a LOT more time is this area lately, especially right before Christmas whipping up some gifts to give. It was becoming more and more obvious that the space was not working out so well anymore.  


Now that I'm able to complete things more quickly and starting more projects, I'm running out of room to store fabrics and things I typically use while sewing. Because of this, I have stuff stored in here, in my closet, in my bedroom, and random nooks and crannies around the apartment. It's exhausting trying to remember where each and every little thing is.  I am an extremely organized person and even I was struggling to keep up with where things were. It was clear, I needed more storage so everything could be in one place.

I remembered an old china hutch from my Dad's family that was being stored in a spare bedroom upstairs at my parent's house. We once used it in our 'craft room' at home to store things like glue, paper, scissors, markers, paint, etc. so I knew it could be easily transformed into a storage center for my sewing and random bits of crafting things. Lucky for me, my parents weren't at all torn about letting me have it. So, I did some quick measuring and it is an absolute perfect fit for my sewing nook -- I just needed to uproot the puppies' corner.

If you remember, a few months ago, I started a crate makeover to get this area looking more presentable while holding onto the much needed crates. I got this far, and haven't done anything since -- I'm also terribly indecisive when it comes to picking fabrics.


Since I never finished the makeover and the crates are portable, I wasn't too heartbroken to move them elsewhere. I'm still not ready to take those crates down permanently, so they have a new home in the living room -- and now that they're more visual, hopefully I will finally make a decision on some fabric and get them looking better! So, with the crates out of the way, I had room for my new storage.  Only problem, I wasn't happy with the current look of the hutch.  I loved the lines and shape of it, but wasn't crazy about the wood color, the knobs or the condition it was in. So, I decided it would need a new coat of paint -- luckily, my parents were also fine with me giving it a little makeover.

Knowing I was going to paint it, I started to think up a whole sewing/craft nook design scheme.  I thought the hutch would be most versatile in white -- here and later when I move -- so with that decision made, I started to figure out the rest of the area and landed on something like this...


I decided on a teal, yellow and grey color scheme so I could use a lot of what I already have and add in some cheerful pops of yellow. I picked out the grey as an additional 'neutral' so everything, including the walls, aren't white. The hutch pictured is similar to what I have inherited and will be white with a very subtle grey and white fabric background. There are three shelves in it and I plan to fill them with the grey and white storage containers (from The Container Store) along with some other pops of teal and yellow.  My black desk is being made over to a light grey similar to the one above and I would love a whilte lamp base with yellow shade to sit on top. The curtains are already teal and plan to stay. I haven't decided on a desk chair or a rug, but am searching for similar items to the ones above. The rest of the pops of teal, yellow and grey will be some fun accesories I have around and a few I've already found on random shopping trips.  Also, since the hutch has room for sewing stuff and more, I plan to store anything and everything that helps me be crafty and have therefore dubbed this little area my Craft Nook :)

Now, to make it happen... I have begun painting the hutch white and did manage to makeover my black desk to a pretty light grey and added some fun yellow knobs.  It's been slow, but I think it will be well worth it when I can have all my stuff in one place! For now though -- and all weekend -- back to painting!

Happy Friday!

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