Books quilts and sewing

Quilting Room Remodel

I like many of my fellow quilters have a knack for collecting (hoarding) all things quilting (fabric, scissors, cutters, etc…).  This brings me to the love seat.  A love seat that I have to admit, I actually despised when my wife suggested we buy the living room set and bring it to our new home here in Texas.  I didn’t like the color, the fabric, and if you sat in it, you would be under the distinct impression that it wanted to throw you right back off.  After five years it was my turn to pick a new living room set.  At that point, even my wife admitted that the old couch and love seat were uncomfortable.

So, rather than trying to sell our old set and have someone pay to become uncomfortable in their own living room, I set the couch out on the curb.  When my wife saw the love seat still in the house, she ask why we weren’t setting it out as well.  I thought as we converted one of the bedrooms into a sewing room that we could use the love seat as a place to sit when only one of us was sewing (she scoffed at the idea).  I had this thought of curling up on the thing and being able to spend time chatting while the other person was sewing.

It became nothing of the sort…  At present, on the couch, are an assortment of different projects in the last stages of completion.  This has been its main function for over a year.  Lost to me was the fact that I could never be comfortable on it and would always sit across from her at my sewing station instead.  Time to let go and utilize the space for a more purposeful reason and to admit that yes, my wife was right… we should have gotten ride of it a long time ago.

An old leather swivel chair provides some comfort while sewing which I had to talk my wife into letting me keep even prior to the sewing room.  It sat in our bedroom for a while with nowhere else to store it.  When we turned the other bedroom into a sewing room, it had a new purpose, my sewing chair!  Score one for the hoarders!!  My wife has been using one of the dinning chairs that we kept from the old dinning set.  It is very uncomfortable and not the best idea that we’ve ever had.  As part of the room remodel however, our children are buying her a proper swivel chair for mother’s day.

I’ve seen many pictures of what some people have as their sewing/craft rooms and have to admit I’m jealous with the amount of space they have.  Because of the love seat and the distinct lack of square footage, our cutting is currently done on the coffee table  in the front room.  Our ironing station is set up and taken down in the hallway, and our sewing is done on… you guessed it, a dinning room table that I moved into the sewing room when we bought a new dining room set.  The old dining table was on its last leg when it was replaced, well its last three legs to be more specific.  It has the unusual tendency to shimmy ever so slightly when we are sewing at the same time.  It’s a bit like sewing on a really great washing machine that is perpetually stuck on the spin cycle.

I’m finally ready to bid the love seat and dinning table goodbye and rearrange the room, replacing the old dinning table with two sewing tables, setting up a cutting station, ditching the love seat, and buying some shelving for the bare walls.  The ironing can then be set up in the sewing room and broken down when it isn’t needed.

Here is the before look of the room and I’ll post a picture after we’ve converted it into a friendlier space.