Here is my current tentative layout for my sewing studio. The kitchen/dining room/living room is a large rectangular space: from the kitchen island to the windows/sliding doors/ is 31′. Width at the doors is 11′ – at its widest the room is 15′. It’s a big room! There is a doorway on each side leading to a bedroom, but the overall main space is uninterrupted.
There is enough wall space to accommodate the sewing tables for each machine at the balcony/window end of the room. Because the room is so wide, I envision a kitchen island for a cutting table – the unit 24″ deep, 6′ long, with a 3’x6′ top (this will overhang the base by 12″ and perhaps allow the “back” of the island to have shelving) with a cutting mat surface for rotary cutting. I see something like this:
(without the granite top) and probably 12-15″ longer to accommodate shelves at the end as well as the back. Since most of my furniture is teak I thought a finish something like this would work – simple and in an approximate colour family.
A unit like this would compensate for the lack of a closet with shelving in this main space. Right now, my sewing room is very compact and has spilled over into the closets of two other rooms!
However, I think with this shelving and repurposing my teak shelving storage unit and the dining room buffet to handle fabric and notions I will have plenty of sewing storage. (There is also a “den” – for a “box room” where I can put the overflow if I need to.)
Now I need to be patient and wait until I’m actually in the apartment to place what I do have and then see what kind of space I have for the island – who knows, I might be able to make it even bigger. I want to be able to stand at the cutting table and not be far from the machines, ironing board, and the shelves where stuff is stored. Right now I can do that in my small sewing room (9.8′ x 8.7′).
While I will have much more space I want things to be close to hand.
Getting this all set up is going to be fun!
jmn 