Some Inexpensive Studio Furniture Ideas / Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Since Ginny asked about this in a comment to my last post, I'm going to share with you my inexpensive do-it-yourself cutting table.

The base of my table is made up of two shoe cubbies that I purchased at Lowes in their closet organizing department. Turned on end they are the perfect height to set a tabletop on for a cutting table--or an ironing table, or both..

My tabletop is 1/2" plywood that I had cut to approx 30x48 (to accommodate a 24x36 self healing cutting mat and the available space in my own small studio). The wood has been finished with a high gloss white baked on paint (it came from a company that builds convention exhibit booths). The guys at the shop painted the edges for me, but my plan originally was to purchase iron on veneer edging (also available at Lowes) to finish the edges. They used a thick high gloss paint, so the veneering wasn't necessary. Saved me some time and $$$$.

I fold my fabric to fit in the cubbies. Each cubbie holds about 30 stacked  fat quarters, or three folded 4-yard pieces. I've got yardage, FQs, jelly rolls in my cubbies. The cubbies are 12" deep, so you fold your fabric long and narrow for optimum storage. The fabrics aren't in the path of any direct light, and I do cycle through the fabric so it's not in any real danger of fading. When I vacuum my studio, I just vacuum along the stacks as well to keep them dust-free.

My original idea was to make a custom sewing table, with a cut out (suspended on L brackets) for my sewing machine, but the shoe cubbies were too short or too tall, depending on how you placed them, so I bought a lovely white trestle desk for the sewing machine and reworked my cubby idea into the cutting table.

Now, I had to purchase a 4'x8' piece of plywood, so the guys also cut me a shelf, and a desktop (so I can still make my suspended machine shelf desk), and I've squirrelled these away in my closet for future use.

On a quest for thread storage that allowed me to separate my threads out by content and color, and keep them protected from light and dust, I picked up these super inexpensive scrapbook drawers half price at Michaels, with an eye on dual purpose.

What you see are 4 3-drawer units that I've stacked two up. And to my surprise, they are the exact height of the base on my trestle desk, so at some point they will become the 'legs' for that desk-size piece of plywood.

The drawers are spacious and hold quite a bit of thread, and I've labeled them by content. As you can see, the spools lie on their sides (though they could stand), and the cone-type spools of embroidery polyester easily stand.

This shot gives you an idea of how much thread you can fit in a single drawer. You can lie 7 large spools, 11 small spools, or 6 Gutermann spools end to end. And you can lay at least 12 rows across the drawer. That's 72 spools of Gutermann per drawer. Totally out of the light, dust free, and multi-functional storage if you use the units as 'legs' for a flat surface on which to iron, sew, Accucut, embroider......you get the point.

Cost for these multi-purpose storage solutions...totally reasonable. I paid around $50 for all four 3-drawer units. They're sturdy, wood laminate, and they stack securely (pegs hold sets together).

The shoe cubbies were a bit more. They are 25 cube Closet Maid laminate organizers, and they sell for $40 each. The 4x8 sheet of finished plywood cost me about $28, so I got 50 cubes of fabric storage and a cutting table for just over $100. (and that also included a desktop; and a shelf for future use).

Don't be afraid to step outside the box and design things that work for you. There's a ton of inexpensive storage and work solutions that will work great in any studio, large or small. You just need to look at existing storage solutions with an eye at repurposing them to fit your own needs.

Quilting Studio...Coming Along

I'm psyched. It's just about ready to go. Welcome to my sunny, fresh new quilting studio:

Let's take a tour...

New bright white trestle desk. Nice shelf space, lovely work area, not sure about the comfort factor on the chair, but don't want to bring in the black one and disturb the Chi.

Note the colorfully coordinating scrap bag. (Shh...don't tell Jenifer, but I whipped that up one evening when I should have been working on her quilt).

It's always nice to have a little white noise distraction, not to mention hoooking up the DVD player allows me to watch instructional videos (or sappy romances on Saturday afternoons).

No more ugly magazines stacked in piles. A few recovered plain cardboard containers from the office supply store, and wah-la, colorful storage.

Big ol' vase, toss in the extra spools of thread (lots are wooden spools) and you've got a pretty solution for holding rolls of Wonder-Under, template plastic and plastic rulers.

This is my favorite part of the room...the cutting table. It's not finished. There's a white finished top being cut for it that measures 30 x 48, should be here tomorrow. It's counter height, and the legs are 25-cubby shoe organizers from Lowes. Love, love, love them...look at all the fat quarters and half yards they hold. (Yes, I spent the weekend refolding fabric) Colorful, functional, pure joy. (See my South African indigos on the top left?)

Wow! Who knew I had that many fat quarters.

I almost hate to keep the closet doors closed:

There is an elephant in the room though.....

This is the sewing armoire with the electric machine lift I was given a couple years ago.

It's a marvelous piece of furniture and worked well in the cramped craft room. Kept the machine out of sight, away from dust and paint. But you couldn't quilt anything large on it as you ran your quilt into the cabinet as you were sewing. Quite awkward.

But, oh my, look at the storage. I really tried to bring it into the room, but then I was using up the desk trestles and the closet shelves to keep the thread and the little drawers full of pins, needles, seam rippers and the like. While you see 6 HUGE thread boxes there, that are all full (and arranged by color..."can you say 'obsessive-compulsive' boys and girls?"), I would have needed to buy more for the whites, beiges, blacks, metallics and invisibles housed on the door racks.

So I decided to drag it into the new studio space, just to see if I could work it in somehow (I shortened the cutting table by 2 inches to accommodate). If I decide to keep it, I can set the serger up on it, or when I get a new machine, the old one can go here...IF I KEEP IT. In order to keep it, I must paint it white, and in order to paint it white I must sand it, use one paint on the outside (it's lovely oak), one on the inside (the mechanical housing for the lift is metal, the door racks are plastic...I'm thinking spray paint for that). It just seems like a major undertaking.

I've got another white 30 x 60 tabletop cut which would get a custom machine cut out (the machine shelf would be suspended below the top with brackets. I could always use small cabinets for the legs to that table...maybe ones with glass doors. In that case, the armoire goes. I'll figure it out.

In the meantime, instead of worrying about painting, I'm spending my evenings in there soaking up the ambiance and working on:

And I'm loving it!