Creating a sewing room

I am very fortunate that I've been able to set aside a room in my house for my sewing and knitting. I know my actual sewing has been neglected whilst I moved house and have been busy putting this together instead. A lot of measuring and research was needed as well so I've put together a full list of all supplies in case any might be useful to you, along with why I selected them. You'll probably be unsurprised to find that Ikea features heavily.... I really did look around a lot elsewhere, but they were the best value to be honest.

The room I have set aside is a good bedroom size - it does fit a king size bed and could have a fitted wardrobe.

I decided that I needed a table for my sewing machine and my overlocker to sit on permanently. Up until now they have lived in wardrobes and get pulled out to the dining table every time I need them, and put away at the end of each session, which is quite cumbersome so I knew that I wanted them out all the time. This means that I can do a quick bit of sewing if I fancy it. I needed a table that was a suitable size and height, and landed on the Micke desk. It is £70, which I felt was not too expensive, long enough for both machines and has hidden cable storage, reducing the number of wires hanging around. I also lined one of the drawers with the Summera insert, which is rubberised and organised into compartments for all my bits and pieces. The other drawer is lined with the Variera drawer mat, which you cut from a longer roll, just to protect it.

I chose the Langfjall chair (£100) to accompany the desk. It's important to have a comfortable chair when sitting for long periods and this is height adjustable too. It's on wheels so I can move around easily but I left off the optional armrests as I thought these would get in the way. I did get the Ikea floor protector to stop the wheels making marks in the carpet. It makes it easier for the chair to move around as well.

The room I originally planned for had a built in wardrobe which I could use for storing larger fabric boxes so I only needed storage for my patterns, books and notions. I opted for the Kallax bookshelf (£96) with 4 door inserts (to hide away my more messy items!). When it arrived and we built it, we decided to turn it on its side so that there were 3 inserts on the floor instead of 4 to maximise floor space. Currently, I've only put on 3 of the doors it came with so one is still left over. I've used the Drona boxes as well to store yarn and fabric. These are only £3 each (mainly) and are excellent value. I have other similar boxes but these are larger and better quality with concealed handles (and fit the Kallax perfectly obviously). I used Pallra (£3) and Tjog (£3.50) magazine files and storage boxes (£4) for my patterns. I have a lot of printed pdfs here as well as printed patterns and this looks much neater, especially as the pdfs have recently all been moved to envelopes.

After moving to a new room, without a fitted wardrobe, I needed to add to the Kallax to create space for my fabric stash. Because I had used the Ikea Kallax originally, I could find an extra 4 x 1 bookcase to sit next to the one I had. It would have been better to get just the one larger unit, but I guess that's what happen when you move! 

You'll also notice additional units on top of the Kallax. These Eket shelves had been planned to be wall mounted elsewhere in the room, but they would have cut down on the limited light available. They still can be wall mounted where they are but it made more sense to stack them.

No sewing room would be complete without its obligatory peg board either. I've used a pair of Skadis boards here (£10 each), with the following range of accessories: Shelf, container with hook, clip, hook, storage bag, letter holder (£18 in total). The mat you can see under my sewing machine is one I made when practising my quilting (link here). I need to make a cover for the overlocker as well.

I did order all the Ikea furniture to be delivered, which is costly (£39), but I wasn't confident I'd be able to get it all in the car. It still worked out cheaper than other options I was looking into and I could pick a delivery date that would fit in after we had painted the room. Unfortunately, all the Skadis accessories were missing though. After 1 hour on hold to Ikea's customer service (not that bad to be fair, the hold music is Abba's greatest hits), they rescheduled the delivery and gave me a £10 voucher. Smaller items cost a lot less to be delivered by the way.

Fairly lights are £5 from Dunelm Mill. 

I was happy to be able to finally frame and mount the sketches I bought from the Dior exhibit at the V&A museum. Frames are from Wilko.com at 2 for £10 and the print in the middle is from Desenio, with a sample of lace from my wedding dress.

My portable drawer unit was sourced from Hobbycraft, instead of going for the one available from Ikea. This one was slightly cheaper (£28) and comes in a range of attractive colours (with free delivery)

Finally, we have Lady Penelope, my adjustable dressform. She isn't new but has set up residence here, acquired from Sew Essential (she was a gift from my mum, but you can see currently retails for £175).