Labor (Day) of Love: Finally creating the sewing room in the basement
It's been nearly 18 months now that I've been in house and without a dedicated sewing space. Longer than that, since I dismantled the sewing room at the condo in January 2011 when prepping the condo for sale.
After setting up the dining room area to be a shared dining room/sewing space, I turned my attention to the basement and the area (under the living room and master bedroom) which will become the sewing room.
Here's the "before" (quotes because I've been working on moving non-sewing storage out of that space to other areas of the basement).
Since these pictures, I have dismantled the empty set of storage shelves and they're ready to head to the scrap metal pile at the dump. I have also moved the full storage shelves into the space by the oil tank and the furnace. Then I scrubbed the every-loving potty words out of the floor in there. That was heinous--possibly even worse than dismantling the shelves with all the screws underneath and covered with the spider web/spider egg sack nirvana. Ack.
Anyway, the metal storage closet will move into a corner at the back of the house, near the metal shelves with the extra machine heads. The sewing machines (most of them) will move to the front of the house. There will be space in the center of the room eventually, for a set of kitchen cabinets for storage with a butcher block counter (with at least a foot of overhand all around for a cutting table/ironing board.) There will also be a work table (probably the yellow formica table Mrs. Ridgely left behind) for working on cleaning/restoring machines and a set of the 5x5 Expidit shelves.
Here is the newly cleared out front of the room. Well, cleared out of the storage shelves; then all the machines got pushed into this area so I could scrub the floor in the back half.
The back half, cleared of all but the sewing machine shelves.
The ceiling is my next project. I'm going to partially finish it. I'll use full sheets of bead board, painted a bright, glossy white, tacked into the joists with dry wall screws. They will NOT be closed up to make a full, connected ceiling. This is deliberate, because it prevent my needing a building permit at this stage of setting up. I just want something above the machines and the future cutting table to keep dust and dirty from the ceiling above from falling onto sewing projects. Also, painting the bead board bright white will make the room brighter and show colors more accurately when I'm working on projects. I plan to buy the bead board next weekend and paint it and then hope to borrow my son for an hour or two while we tack up the boards (fingers crossed :)
Eventually this space WILL be completely finished and I'll get the permits when that time comes, but for now I'm just trying to make the space functional. I've missed having a dedicated sewing space :)
After setting up the dining room area to be a shared dining room/sewing space, I turned my attention to the basement and the area (under the living room and master bedroom) which will become the sewing room.
Here's the "before" (quotes because I've been working on moving non-sewing storage out of that space to other areas of the basement).
Since these pictures, I have dismantled the empty set of storage shelves and they're ready to head to the scrap metal pile at the dump. I have also moved the full storage shelves into the space by the oil tank and the furnace. Then I scrubbed the every-loving potty words out of the floor in there. That was heinous--possibly even worse than dismantling the shelves with all the screws underneath and covered with the spider web/spider egg sack nirvana. Ack.
Anyway, the metal storage closet will move into a corner at the back of the house, near the metal shelves with the extra machine heads. The sewing machines (most of them) will move to the front of the house. There will be space in the center of the room eventually, for a set of kitchen cabinets for storage with a butcher block counter (with at least a foot of overhand all around for a cutting table/ironing board.) There will also be a work table (probably the yellow formica table Mrs. Ridgely left behind) for working on cleaning/restoring machines and a set of the 5x5 Expidit shelves.
Here is the newly cleared out front of the room. Well, cleared out of the storage shelves; then all the machines got pushed into this area so I could scrub the floor in the back half.
The back half, cleared of all but the sewing machine shelves.
The ceiling is my next project. I'm going to partially finish it. I'll use full sheets of bead board, painted a bright, glossy white, tacked into the joists with dry wall screws. They will NOT be closed up to make a full, connected ceiling. This is deliberate, because it prevent my needing a building permit at this stage of setting up. I just want something above the machines and the future cutting table to keep dust and dirty from the ceiling above from falling onto sewing projects. Also, painting the bead board bright white will make the room brighter and show colors more accurately when I'm working on projects. I plan to buy the bead board next weekend and paint it and then hope to borrow my son for an hour or two while we tack up the boards (fingers crossed :)
Eventually this space WILL be completely finished and I'll get the permits when that time comes, but for now I'm just trying to make the space functional. I've missed having a dedicated sewing space :)