Where do you sew?
Do you have a designated room where you can keep your machine set up at all times?
Is it in a bedroom, a basement, a dining room, an office?
Is it well lit, roomy, comfortable and has lots of storage and all the tools you need to create the projects of your dreams?
I hope you have a spot you love.
But, if you don’t have a designated space, stay tuned. I address some organizational tips for you in a post entitled, Keeping Your Notions Handy.
Here is my sewing room:

It has lots of daylight streaming in.
Why is it stark white, you ask?
It all started at our former home when my sewing room was in the unfinished laundry room in our basement.
(See, now don’t you feel better about your own sewing space?!!!)

It looked like a cave in there with a single naked light bulb at the ceiling (hence the floor lamp for extra lighting.)
So, I asked my handy husband if he could build me a sewing table and paint it white.
He questioned the color choice several times.
I said, “Just trust me on this.”
And he did.
He made the shelving unit you see in the bottom of the first photo. (Yes, he made it portable so that if we ever moved, he could easily take it with us.)
Then, he bought a laminate countertop and secured it to the shelving unit.
He also bought several sheets of pegboard and painted them white. (I bet you can find them premade in white at the hardware store these days.)
He secured them behind my counter so that I could hang most anything from hooks on the peg board.

And that worked really well. I loved having everything right at my fingertips.
We hung a long flourescent light above the counter which made for a wonderful light source.
I’m glad everything was white. I really did need it to be as bright as possible in that room.
I know the photo above doesn’t do it justice, but with all that white and the light, it was a totally awesome space!
I thanked him profusely for years for making it for me.
Then we moved.
And he brought the shelving unit with us.
And it fit perfectly in the new sewing room.
This room has alot of natural daylight in it, but no overhead lighting.

So, I use a floor lamp occasionally at night.
Impressive, huh?
Someday, I’ll call the electrician and have him wire me an overhead light.
So, in the meantime, the lamp works fine.
And don’t you just love the boom box on the countertop?! I don’t have that anymore.
My husband bought the pre-made cupboards that you see above the counter, for storage.
Ninety nine percent of what is stored in there is fabric.
I have already purged the fabric pile several times and what I have left fits perfectly in the cupboards.
I use it for making quilts and for any alterations that require a scrap of fabric to solve the problem.
I’ve written a post on Keeping Your Notions Handy if you’d like to read how I organize my sewing space.
I’d love to hear about your sewing space and what your favorite parts are about it.
Send me photos if you’ve got them. E-mail me at thesewinggarden@gmail.com
I would love to see your creative space!
Sewing room — WOW!! Just the thought makes me drool!! My “sewing room” is a sewing table with wheels that closes up to look like a cabinet. I wheel it into our family room when I want to sew. When company is coming, I close it up and wheel it into the computer room. My stash and supplies are stored in the computer room and in the laundry room. At times I run from place to place trying to find things!
Hi Kathi,
I think your solution to not having a sewing room is excellent! I have not seen such a thing, but it sounds like the perfect solution. I chuckled that at times you have to run trying to find things. That keeps sewing interesting, right?!
I wish you the best and thanks again for giving me a peek into your sewing “room”. 🙂
Linda
I think you have a great husband! The only idea I have to offer your room is to suggest a sliding shelf added underneath to provide you with more room for cutting and other work when and as needed! I just moved my sewing room from kitchen to my craft room yesterday. How wonderful to eat at my kitchen table again! lol. Terri
Hi Terri,
That is an excellent idea! I’m going to ask my husband if he can make that for me. That would be great so I don’t have to drag items down to the dining room table to cut them out.
I hope you are enjoying your new craft room. It’s great to be able to use the kitchen table when you need to, but it’s also nice to have a separate area to sew in.
Thanks for your help!
Do you have under cabinet lighting? You could purchase the type that you can mount under the cabinet and it plugs into a regular plug and it has an on/off toggle switch. They even have the under cabinet lights that you can hook up to each other to make a long run of lighting. They are a lot less expensive than hiring an electrician. That way the lighting would be in front of you so there would not be a shadow that you could possibly have if you had an over head light. I can hardly do anything without good light.
I myself just sew in a spare bedroom. Nothing fancy. I sure wish I had a space as lovely as the space you have made for yourself.
Bev
Beverly,
Hey, that’s great you have an extra bedroom to sew in. That’s basically what mine is, only without a bed.
The under cabinet lighting is an awesome idea! Thank you. I will head out to the hardware store and look for that. I’ve heard of people having that kind of lighting in their kitchens before but hadn’t thought of it. That brass lamp keeps falling over because I’ve knocked it over so may times, so it will be nice to get rid of it!
You have a great looking sewing room. Does it always look that neat or is that just for pictures? 🙂
Is your sewing room setup for production so that you can produce items quickly? Is that an “L” shape? I am looking for your iron and cutting area?
I also have stock cabinets and a white set up, but forgot that the sewing machine had to sit “on top” of the desk. So it is a tad too high.
I also had the top drawer of the cabinet on the left taken out and just a pullout shelf put in. That is where my serger goes when I use it.
I would love to send you a picture but I also weave in that room and it is a terrible creative mess all of the time.
wow! beautiful love your tidy room.
I LOVE your sewing room! For years my sewing “room” was the dining table. That didn’t work well as we had 9 kids so everything had to be packed up and cleared off before dinnertime. Such a pain!
Now with all of them gone but one- we have an office AND a sewing room! But it is a small room that I am trying to streamline so that I can move from one sewing machine to another or one serger to another…and still have room for an ironing board. I really like the cabinets instead of shelves…but *sigh* the shelves are already in place. I DO think I am going to employ the pegboards though! My sewing room is also white…but with bright colored accents and cute curtains.I am still in the process of revamping…
We already had a ceiling light fixture, so my daughter replaced it with a big LED fixture that is wonderfully bright…plus there are two windows! Then, in order to get easy access to the full length of formals and wedding dresses, we installed a big hook into the ceiling (in a cross beam) and hung a chain. Easy as pie to hang even the heaviest dress!
Love this! And congratulations on raising 9 children! So glad you are blessed with a large family. Coming from one myself, I know how special they are!!!