The New & Improved (& downsized) Sewing space

For the past 2 years, I have been blessed with an enormous sewing room. I am talking appx 150 square feet of space with 2 closets and 3 windows that was ONLY for sewing. It was glorious. I truly appreciated the space but I never "beautified" it because I could always just close the door on the chaos.

Fast forward to today. We are 8 weeks (or less) from bringing a new baby home. The only available space for him to reside is my former sewing room. A couple of weeks ago, we moved all the sewing gear out, downsized it considerably (hence all the destash I have been selling in the shop) and moved baby's things in.

The new nursery is all set and I have been working on getting my new sewing area set up. The new space is about 50 square feet. The kicker to the new space is that it is a common area in our home. The space used to be my daughters play area. It opens up to the kitchen and dining room and has no door. This means that not only do I need to keep it organized, but it needs to be somewhat appealing to the eye since everyone will see it when they come in our home.

I have always wanted to have a pretty sewing space and was thrilled for the excuse to finally create it. The problem is money. I can hardly justify buying things to make an appealing space when I have a baby on the way. So, I did my best using what I had around the house and buying as little as possible.

Anyways, here is the common space right after we moved all the sewing gear into it. All piled up and junky. I look at this picture and am totally amazed at how much stuff I was able to stash in other areas of our house. There is an entire armoire in our living room that is housing my fabric stash. Extra tools and supplies that I don't use on a daily basis are stashed in the hall closet.

Before

 

After

Notes and calendar wall. I had the bulletin board and just spray painted the trim and used extra fabric to cover the backing. The dry erase board was on clearance at Staples for $2.90.

Decorative shelf- Found this sucker at Ikea for $34.99! The N&M letters on the shelf, I bought on sale at Hobby Lobby for $.99 each and spray painted them.

I knew I needed to hide storage under the table. I found this home decor fabric on sale at Joann Fabrics for $3 a yard. I completely made up the skirt as I went. The best part about it is that it is affixed to the table with Velcro so I can take it off as needed.

The space is definitely still a work in progress, but I am happy with it so far. I still have some decorative touches that I am hoping to add soon, but for now it functions and does not drive me batty everytime I walk past the space.

Don't forget to enter the giveaway here. It ends Thursday at midnight.