Melissa's Woman Cave

Today's guest is Melissa. I came across her blog recently and asked he4r if she would like to blog here... I'm so glad that she agreed... Not only she has an organized sewing room, but she has annotated the images so that we can know better...

Thank you Melissa, for this wonderful post!

Hi! My name is Melissa and I blog over at Love Affair with My Brother. 

I started designing my sewing room when my hubby and I decided to buy a new home, we got to pick out everything in our house and I figured if my husband was going to have a garage (a.k.a. the Man Cave), which will hopefully be the home of his woodworking room at some point, I needed my own space too – thus the Woman Cave was born.

We got to pick everything for our house and we had the option of having an open formal dining room, a den or a guest bedroom in the downstairs of our home. I decided that for my Woman Cave the den would fit my needs best. For two reasons: 1. I loved the idea of French Doors and 2. I liked the idea of no closet (you’ll see why later).

Here is the open view of my sewing room:

I love this room and spend almost every nap time in here (when I’m not folding laundry or washing dishes!).

We will start in one corner and work our way around.

Our first step is where all the magic happens, my sewing table:

This is a multifunction table because I do all my cutting and sewing here. Eventually I would like to get a high cutting table too, but for now I just don’t have the space (hard to believe isn’t it!).  I have my GO! Cutter, both my machines (a serger is next), and my trusty sewing companion to keep me company.  I love this set up because everything I need is within arm’s length reach.

Next is my Yarn Storage and Books:

The shelf holding all my yarn is a repurposed shelving unit from Ikea, once we got it home and built we decided it wasn’t a good fit for its original purpose – but it was the PERFECT fit for all of my yarn.  I didn’t have enough wicker baskets so I made the fabric ones that you see underneath.  My bookshelf is a mishmash of things. I have my photography gear, all my crafting books and more back issues of knitting magazines than I care to admit!

Next stop is my inspiration windows and ironing area:

I don’t think there is anything more important in a sewing space than natural lighting; I have a huge window at the front of my room and these three along the wall.  I keep them uncovered and chock full of photos of all my loves – they are my inspiration.  My ironing board will one day be replaced by a cutting table (hopefully) and the board will be stored flat when not in use.

I have my computer and design center in the next corner: 

This is actually my least favorite part of the space and I hope that one day I will be able to take it out of the room but until my toddler learns that we don’t yank on every cord we see it is going to have to live here.  I really need to pretty it up some to make it more inspirational…but I don’t think that is going to happen any time soon.

Finally we have my storage cabinet. I mentioned earlier that I didn’t want a closet, which you maybe thought was completely NUTS. Well I do have my reasons, which I will share with you. I really wanted to be able to see my stash and not be able to hide anything. I have a very bad habit of tossing a project that is frustrating me into a box or into the closet and “forgetting” it is there. This holds me accountable:

You can’t hide anything when you have clear glass doors and all of your projects are staring you in the face. It also forced me to come up with a creative way to organize my fabrics so that it wouldn’t look like an absolute disaster in there – thus the ROYGBIV Bins were born!

That’s it, that’s my sewing space!  What do you think? Any ideas for my ugly computer area?

Thanks for letting me guest post today!