Studio Tour!

FINALLY! After what seems like an eternity of turmoil, my studio is complete.  

And I absolutely LOVE my new space.

If you’ve been following along, you know we swapped my son’s room and my sewing studio to give him more room to grow and play (and not have French doors leading to the backyard in his room).  

Read about the beginnings of the swap here (State of the Studio) , and The Boy’s Room Redux here.

I gotta admit, this swap was NOT easy. Not easy emotionally, physically, and especially financially. It was draining on all three parts!  

But now it is done, and while I’ve lost a little bit of my momentum (a vacation and wholesale orders helps with that!), I’m slowly getting it back, and my new studio space is definitely helping.

Mind you, the following photos are the only evidence that it was ever this clean, but the new space sure makes it easy to keep it on the more organized side of things.

BEHOLD:

The view from the door. The room is rather small, so no nifty panoramas here.

The new room gave me the opportunity to design it from the ground up. I chose my color palate based on two things: my branding, and colors that wouldn’t interfere with product photography. Sometimes if you’re shooting around a yellow wall (hello, living room!), you might have some issues with it showing up on your product.

So I chose a stark, bright white for three walls, and a dark grey for the wall with the door (where you see my computer). Lemme tell you, finding the right shade of grey was rather difficult! I wanted a charcoal, but not too dark, and many of the greys I found had too much blue in them. So after hunting the swatches among Miller Paint, Dutch Boy, Sherwin Williams, I finally found it in the Martha Stewart paint collection at Home Depot (that crafty bitch strikes again!).

The grey is called Zinc, and I got it color-matched at Freddy’s, as I am a huge fan of the Dutch Boy low-VOC paint (we used it in The Boy’s room, too), and it covers surfaces really well. Keep in mind, this room had dark brown and sea foam green walls, and we only had to paint two coats to get it covered!

I also wanted a pop color, and I already had pink in my previous room (and is one of my branding colors), so I stuck with the pink (not a hard decision).

The wall shelving is from Home Depot, and just about everything else (furniture-wise) is from Ikea. I love their modern, modular look, and most importantly, it’s cheap. I was able to buy desktops and PINK table legs for a little bit of pop.

I also found some lanterns from Ikea, one in white, and one in pink, for some added lighting, as the ceiling fan does its job, but the lanterns really help, especially late at night!

The curtains are from Target, and they are a gorgeous grey ombre. You can’t really see it very well in the daylight, but it was one of the items I was super excited to buy for this room.  

The rug–yep. Ikea.

It was $20.

I know, right??

Since it’s a sewing studio, I knew weekly vacuuming was in the cards, so I could keep the uber cheapo rug looking good for a while, especially now that I have room to get to the rug to vacuum it. I never thought I would be excited about the prospect of vacuuming.

What can I say? I’m easily entertained.

The closet (above, right) contains all (and I mean ALL) of my scrapbooking items. Why I didn’t get a photo of it is beyond me, as it’s actually pretty organized in there (amazing, I know!).

My ironing board folds up neatly onto the closet door, which is good, as when I’m pressing, it doesn’t leave a lot of room to get in and out of the room itself. So I’m forced to put it away when I’m done pressing.

It’s one of the many failsafes I have in place to avoid the room becoming a Hoarder Hovel like before.  

My shipping station is next to the closet door, and it contains all the items I need to pack and ship my items to customers. I love, LOVE having a dedicated space to do this, as in the previous space it was hard to keep the space clean to have room to spread out and properly pack up an item. I also use this area to shoot my items, and the French doors provide an amazing amount of natural light to work with.

I’m used to shooting on the other side of the house, so now it’s just figuring out what time of day works better on this side.  

Look at all those little items to pretty up my packages! They’re all so neat and organized (and they’ll actually stay that way!).

One of the other obstacles in the previous space was finding space to cut out my items. I’ve long known that if it’s a flat surface and it could stick around, chances are, I’m gonna pile crap on top of it, making it virtually impossible to have a consistently clean surface to cut out fabric.

So I splurged on a folding cutting table.

This was seriously the best purchase ever. I can unfold it all the way and have a HUGE space to cut out large items (like blankets and my NEW carseat canopies), or I can unfold one side (like the above photo on the right) to cut out smaller items.

The table is another clutter failsafe in that I have to put it away when I’m done…or else we can’t get to the backyard to let the dogs out. So I am literally forced to put it away when I’m done. And that, my friends, is awesome.

I also used the nifty measuring tape that has an adhesive on the back. I didn’t realize it’s only in 12″ increments, but I can add it together. It helps when measuring packages and cutting ribbon when packaging my items, too. 

Note the Laser Cat photobomb in the left photo above.  I love my little Roxie kitty, but I kick her out nightly. This has significantly reduced my consumption in lint roller refills since the room swap!

The shelving above my computer was invaluable. In my previous space, I had a lot of items crammed into a four-by-four Expedit unit from Ikea, and even then it wasn’t enough space. This shelving allowed me to organize items in a better way, and also caused me to pare down my supplies; not an easy task.

There were many times where I felt completely overwhelmed. Rob helped me through it by encouraging me to go through one box at a time. Only some of the boxes I needed were at the bottom of the stack in the garage, which is where Rob helped me again (YAY Rob!).

He also mentioned whatever we couldn’t fit into this room and a small part of the garage, we could store in a storage unit….

…And that’s where I drew the line.

NO STORAGE UNITS EVAR.

I have never been a fan of them. I think storage units should only be used if you’re in a temporary living situation, you’re touring Europe, etc. Not because you have too much crap to fit in your house. If you’ve got too much crap to fit into your house, regardless of the size, chances are, you don’t need it.

Yes, we do live in a 900-square-foot house, but goddammit, if Ikea can make living in a 500-square-foot area look amazing, then I can, too.  

It only meant one thing: fit in what is necessary, and get rid of what isn’t.

The threat of the storage unit made it a whole lot easier to purge my craft supplies.  

I was also able to proudly display my crocheted “Corporate Zombie” plushie my mama made me, neatly file my papers in pretty file folders, and place awesome stickers on my new drawer unit from Ikea (see photos above).

Sewing Area

Then onto the sewing area! I was so surprised at how easily this part of the room came together. I guess I can chalk it up to knowing what I needed, and what I didn’t.

But now it is finally finished, and I can get that momentum back for creating new items, as I now have the space that not only is functional, but helps with inspiration and initiative. I am still surprised at how well this room turned out, and how energized I feel when working in it.

Now you can look forward to seeing new items in the shop, as this isn’t taking up my whole month of May anymore!