My Sewing Space

Today's post is about my sewing space. Often when you see a blogger post about their new or updated sewing space, they've gone to Ikea and have beautiful white furniture. And usually their space is bright with natural sunshine coming through the windows.

My space isn't like that. My sewing space is in the basement and has an egress window for natural light. And, the basement is not finished.

However I also see pictures of quilters who have their sewing machine on their kitchen table or in a bedroom. Then I realize how fortunate I am to have a whole basement for my sewing space.  I can go upstairs, shut the door and no one will see my mess!

One of my summer activities was painting part of the basement walls white.

I had huge closets upstairs in the farmhouse that I stored a lot of quilting things. There aren't any closets down here so everything is spread out.

I do have a much larger display wall in the basement than I had at the farmhouse. I used two 8' insulation boards. Apparently the ceiling in the basement isn't quite 8' but that has worked out ok. It's harder than it used to be to reach down to the bottom of a flat surface. Curving out like these boards do makes it easier to put blocks down there.

Can you see at the top of the picture I've had lights installed to shine on the display wall? It was rather amusing trying to explain to a handyman, who's wife doesn't even own a sewing machine, what the use of the lights were for.

To cover the insulation boards, I used the top flannel sheet left when the bottom sheets wore out. They still have napp and they works just fine. I taped the sheets to the boards individually because that's how big the sheets were, but it was also easier for me to handle one board at a time.

I also had the handyman install LED lights in the basement so I would have better lighting.

Since I have organized my sewing space, I've realized I need more LED lights. There is going to be a light installed above my ironing board and along the support posts.

My cutting table is our old kitchen table, the Farmer bought it at some auction before we were married. When we got our new table, I repurposed it. Notice the extensions on the legs. Originally I used just  the PVC pipes but it still wasn't quite tall enough and I got backaches. Those bed risers added the necessary height, no more backaches!

See those papers stuck to the joists, that is where the additional LED lights are to be installed.

This is my sewing setup. The cabinet was the heaviest thing to be carried down the steps. The Farmer asked me several times if I was sure I wanted the cabinet down the stairs, YES! 

The former owner left these cubbies here for my use. She was unable to fit them anywhere in her new home. The brown chest of drawers was purchased at an auction and I painted it brown.

The little shelf to the right of the brown chest of drawers was purchased for $5 at a resale store. Our local son said it looks like someone's first woodworking project. Maybe so but it holds stuff and that's what I care about.

I know it looks like a crack in the foundation wall but it isn't, the wall is safe. My nephew said there are two types of foundations walls, those with cracks and those that are going to crack.

Here is the west wall. The Farmer put 2 hangers in the joists to hang the ferns. One pot is a lot smaller because I tore it apart before bringing it into the house. The sitting ferns came from that plant.

I really downsized my books and magazines before we moved. That bookshelf also came from an auction, I painted it blue.

As I'm writing this post, the handyman is in the basement now installing more LED lights. He wasn't able to finishing installing the additional LED lights in one afternoon, he said he would come back in 3 or 4 days. He was going to drive to Illinois that evening to help his 82 year old FIL with harvesting. It was pouring rain here but dry in Illinois!

I've said before our weather is affected by Lake Michigan. We get normal system rain/snow, however we also get lake effect rain/snow. This is what it looked like Tuesday afternoon, October 17 here in northern Indiana, lake effect snow!

Linking to Needle & Thread Thursday, Put Your Foot Down, TGIFF!, Peacock Party, Whoop Whoop Party, Finished or Not  Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts