My name is Charlotte, sometimes known as Ms Lottie, occasionally as The Slightly Mad Quilt Lady. This is my blog, where you'll find me writing a lot about my quilting and textile arts and a little about my family's life in a small seaside town in New Zealand. Haere mai!

Thursday, March 7, 2019

Studio Planning (again)

We've been living off-boat/on-shore for about a year now and about nine months in this particular house.  I'm feeling well settled, in fact, it's starting to feel too small.  I'm resigned to the fact that however large a space we have to live in, we'll soon fill it, so it's probably best that we stick to fairly small abodes!

This house is only 90 square metres (970 square foot) and it only has three bedrooms and one bathroom.  It does have three metre wide decks on three sides of the house, so that has given us more 'living' space, but we knew we would be looking at expanding the house as soon as we could.

One of the reasons to extend is to give me an area to sew in.  Hubby promised a dedicated space when we moved out of the apartment and into here - it was one of my conditions for settling for a smaller place.  In the meantime, I've been squeezing into the corners:

My machine takes up one corner of the living room
And using the hall as my storage space:


The funny coloured square on the wall used to be a window.  It's in the process of being filled in because we've been extending the house on the other side, and eventually there will be a big floor to ceiling cupboard on this side.

We've (well, really it's been newly retired Hubby doing all the work with executive design decisions by me) filled in one of the decks on the side of the house and have created a fourth bedroom, another w.c and a new entrance way.

The new entrance looking right through the new bedroom to the other side of the house.

I'm looking out from what used to be my front door to the new entrance way and the new w.c.

And the new bedroom, awaiting paint and flooring.
It was finished just enough and just in time to install my sister, brother in law and nephew who are visiting for a couple of weeks.  And now that they are just about to head home, we are gearing up for another push to get it all finished.  That means plastering the ceilings, painting, flooring, plumbing up the loo and then installing my son in the new bedroom.

Which gets me to the point of this post.  I get to takeover his old bedroom for my studio, which means I get to plan my studio layout!

This messy bedroom will be my new space. I didn't clean up, I'm sure you all know what teenage boy's rooms are like!


It's 2.25 metres wide and 4.2 metres long. The windows run the whole length of the front wall, so two whole walls are taken up with glass - good for light, but not great for storage solutions.  And in here, I want to fit my: 
  • HQ Sweet Sixteen machine and table, 
  • my Bernina 440 on my Sew-ezi table, 
  • a big wardrobe type cupboard for fabric, 
  • a cutting surface, an ironing surface 
  • and a design wall.  
Hmmmmm, time to get planning.

3 comments:

  1. Not much space, but more than you have now. Great news! I would suggest a flip down ironing surface. They were very popular here in the 1950s. Ironing boards were hidden in a cupboard and when the door was opened, one could fold down the ironing board. Something like: https://www.bookofjoe.com/images/2008/06/06/h998yh987yh.jpg. The ones I saw on the web look smaller, which isn't idea for yards of fabric, but might be good for space. I would consider rolling or modular cupboards, so you have options in the future.

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  2. I wish you luck in your planning.

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  3. My sewing area is a about the same width as yours but not quite as long, I've changed the set up I don't know how many times and still not completely happy but I'm going to have to live with it! Will you have a computer set up in here? I decided to squeeze mine in and find it's great for checking patterns, looking at fabrics (fatal). My cutting table takes up a large area is 80" by 28".
    Good luck with your 'move' and I look forward to seeing the result of your planning.

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