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.

The Worm Has Turned

Sorry I've been missing, and didn't update the tunes for Saturday. Picked up what I thought was a virus on Thursday, thought I had got rid of it, only to have it come back guns blazing Saturday morning, when I had to leave for the embroidery lecture.

Really wanted to avoid dealing with it when I got home, so I researched what I had and found out it was the netsky worm. Fired up one of the netbooks, found a geek site telling me how to get rid of it, heaved a heavy, heavy sigh at all the files I'd be deleting and regstry code I'd be slogging through to delete, and decided to just run the Malwarebytes free software scan (the hubs brought this home from work on Friday) as an excuse to put it off for another couple hours.

Putting the sad, sick laptop out of my mind, I headed to the studio to organize and start cutting 7" strips from my Kiwiberry Balipop for a batik French braid I'm classing on in a couple weeks, forgetting about the sad, sick laptop. (And see the pretty backing fabic? Hoffmann, half price at the LQS on Friday.)

After dinner (and a glass or two of Merlot), I decided that I needed to tackle the clean up since this is the computer I telecommute on and it would have to be operational Tuesday. Surprise, surprise! The Malwarebytes free software not only found the 33 infected files, but it also cleaned the registry, and now (knock wood), everything appears to be peachy keen. I must have been living right yesterday.

I was then able to go back upstairs, finish cutting strips, organize a new thread cabinet (a found set of rolling drawers that has been in the basement for years....which cleaned up nicely using patio furniture cleaner).

I had been thinking about acquiring a thread rack but then it would take up a surface, or ruin the total Zen of the room (not to mention clash with the existing art) if I hung it on the walls. Plus, who wants their thread exposed to light? Thread degrades quickly enough all by itself, it certainly doesn't need a sunny, well-lit room to fade it faster...especially when I'm paying six-plus bucks a spool for it. The cabinet also holds my Bernina embroidery unit, a drawer for hoops, a drawer for embroidery needles/ special scissors/other embroidery notions, one for software one for stabilizers, and two for threads (separated out by rayon/metallic and polyester). Pretty darn perfect storage solution, not to mention it was free. (The hubs should be proud, except I think I'm going out to JoAnn today or tomorrow for some more thread, and maybe a fabric calculator :) )

I just love a good organization! (Ah, and a fulfillment of a New Year's guideline to boot!) And yes, I have not yet begun to embroider, which is why you don't see that much thread...though the drawers aren't pulled all the way out and there's more sections...not to worry, I'll catch up with you (which is what worries the hubs).

And now that the snowmen have been returned to their tote in the basement, I've got a new sewing buddy (a gift from the hubs--he was partial to the palm tree):

Why of course, Jack, I'd love to share the rum...especially since today we are planning to freemotion the Beach House quilt.