You 'N' Jo: My Sewing Room

Saturday, July 2, 2011

My Sewing Room

I've always wanted a sewing space, even if it's small or in this case, tiny! My current apartment had this little extra room at the front of the building overlooking the balcony. When we first moved in, we just dumped stuff in there but it was always designated as my sewing room. I'm finally trying to get this room set up now.


Before

My first task besides cleaning the space a little was to find a cutting table. For the past several years, I've been using a round kitchen table as my cutting table and sewing table. The round table was pretty much a pain-in-my-behind to work on and not to mention how annoying it was to have to clear the table to set up my sewing machine and serger every time I had to sew. It didn't make sewing a happy activity anymore. Also, the kitchen table was at a pretty low height, around 29 inches, and it was really hurting my back. I'm no spring chicken anymore. :-( So, I looked for a cutting table with these criteria:

1. The table had to adjust in height. For me, a height of 36 inches is perfect. I'm not the tallest person in the world.

2. The table had to be portable since we seem to move every 2 to 3 years

3. It had to be CHEAP!! I ain't no baller.

In my search, I did check local sewing stores and all of the tables I found were expensive- over $100.00. And most of the tables were too big for the space. In my frustration, I just decided to make my own.

I found an adjustable table from the Home Depot online store. It was a basic all purpose folding table for around $68 with S+H. The table can be adjusted to 3 different levels, the highest being 36 inches! AND the corners of the table are rounded- no sharp corners to snag on fabric!

Since the surface of the table has to be pin-able and with some give in order to trace patterns, I decided to cover the surface with a sheet of cork. I found a roll of cork sheeting for $15 at Office Depot.