The Working Studio

School holidays are in full swing and yesterday and today were grey and rainy, so I did what I'd been thinking about for ages - rearranged my studio.  It's a good time to get things like that done.  The kids play and watch DVD's and I can take breaks to feed them and mediate or even read stories.  But I still get a lot of time because I don't have to interrupt to go pick them up from school or do mother help or any of those exciting things.  Anyway, here are some before and after pics.

This little nook used to be the kids play area.  I thought it was too small to use for me and it got even smaller when I jammed a couch in there.  You can see the freezer in the picture above that I had at a right angle out into the room .  I used it as a cutting table and had my machine table and trestle table backed up to it.  I decided that it really cut the room in half and wasn't nearly as user friendly as I thought it would be.  Best laid plans and all of that.

So I turned the freezer back against the wall (you can see my big cutting mat on top, I've used 3M command picture hanging strips to attach it to the top of the freezer so I can open the lid without taking the mat off).  I put my trestle table and sew-ezi machine table in an L shape in the nook and now I look out the window when I sew. 

Here's a view right into the nook (bit of a mess, I'm still slowing sorting it out).  I fitted a couple of bookshelves in beside me and these carry all my tools and pins etc that I use frequently while I'm at the machine.  You can see my design wall to the right above my ironing board.

See?  Here's the long view.  I fit nicely into the nook and the room seems so much larger now that the freezer and my trestle table aren't cutting it in half.  And look at all that floor space for laying out quilts!

Here's what it used to look like from the front door (which is next to the nook).  My trestle table with all it's junk underneath it was the central feature.

And here's the same view now.  I've shifted the couch against the wall into the space vacated by one of the bookshelves.  There's still a few baskets of toys that need to be sorted through and downsized (a constant job).  Even better, there's my eight year old boy who used to really struggle with reading.  Over the last school term, his reading age has taken leaps and bounds and is now more than a year ahead of his own age!  So relieved!  Now he's turning into a book worm.  He's read three whole chapter books over the last two days and is pestering me to go to the library to get more of his favourite - the BeastQuest series by Adam Blade.

I cleaned up a little more and took a longer view.  Looks good, huh?

And now the next sorting job on my radar.  Should I attempt it?