This house has fourteen rooms, not counting potties, all of them are in a state of undress, but hallelujah, one is D.O.N.E., completely D.O.N.E. In my book, that's worth celebrating. This is what the sewing room / storage room looked like in January when we started. That's looking through the wall studs into the room. I think my hubby is a stud for being able to do this project!


Walls went up, with a closet for fabric, etc. Extra outlets were installed. You can't have too many outlets in any room, can you? He put three new ones in for me. I don't know about you, but three extra outlets makes my heart thump!

The back wall is a 'designing wall', very useful when planning out a quilt. This quilt is still in progress, unfortunately. All this painting has really cut into my play time.

LOOK! It's all finished. Floors were repainted to match the rug more closely. Walls repainted, closets painted. Lots of paint, but at $25 a gallon it's a great way to transform any room. I stuck with neutral beige, in case, horror of horrors, this becomes a work room, or bedroom for a kid home from college, etc. I'm hoping the next lady who moves in will use it for something fun. Like sewing and quilting and knitting!

This is my favorite photo of the bunch. Just makes my heart really happy to take it in.

There's the closet, painted a fresh coat of white. My sewing table and file cabinet are from the office section of Office Depot and work great for sewing. Having an ironing board closeby is critical to quilting. The armoire holds 'stuff' plus a little TV with a VCR in it. I can pop in any of my old hokey movies while I sew. I actually watched Neverending Story while I painted in here. The cover sitting on top of my chair is a sewing machine cover, sewn about 20 years ago. Back then my 'sewing room' was a card table at the back of the family room, so covering up the machine was a survival tactic, for me and for the kids who were wee-little.

Another shot of my sewing area. After the walls went up, and outlets were added, I completely rearranged the room. I think it'll work much better this way.

One of my sewing girlfriends advised me to put some 'warm fuzzies' in this room. This shelf holds my MIL's button collection, her wooden spools of thread, and the basket has patterns well over 50 years old in it. That little can is her Necchi machine oil, and the machine is tucked in a barn in Colorado, waiting for me to pick up someday. She won it at the State Fair and sewed on it for the next fifty or so years. When you buy a machine now you get a little plastic vial of oil. I love that they gave you this cute pink-striped metal can back then. Back when things were made out of metal instead of plastic! I plan to use her machine for my grand-daughters to sew on when they come for visits at the lake.

I added a painting I did, from a live model in art class, about twenty years ago. Also an antique ladder with some of my mother-in-laws quilts, retrieved from her basement, plus my husband's baby quilt. Treasures, treasures!

I borrowed an overhead projector from our church, went online and found fun sewing and quilting quotes, and decorated the walls with them. I also saved some paint to cover them if the next owners hate them. The quote below the painting says, "I'm a material girl, want to see my fabric collection?"

Okay, here it is! In my new closet, the boxes hold scraps of fabric by color, the baskets hold 'fat-quarters' of fabric, by color or design or theme. You use a lot of scraps when you quilt, and it's helpful to be able to find them by color. Four shelves for patterns, projects in process, and the floor is good for my 'take-with' sewing machine and bulky items like batting, etc.

These are real treasures, hand-pieced quilt tops I found in my MIL's basement, and now that I quilt, I hope to finish them someday. In the meantime, they're lovely inspiration while I work / play in this room. I have no idea how old these are, except O.L.D.

I brought the peg board in from my scrapping area. It's great for holding sewing tools, especially sharp ones. The bag hanging on it was my mother-in-law's darning bag, found when we cleaned out her apartment. I love that it has her initials, with her maiden name, hand-embroidered on it. She got married 61 years ago yesterday, so that bag has been around awhile.

Loved the quote on this one, ("the only place where housework comes before needlework is in the dictionary"). That should guarantee some fun, quilt-free hours spent in here. I really think this may be the room I miss the most when we move away. Of course, DH can always build me another one, and if someone crafty buys this house, I'm going to love knowing she can hide away down here, making beautiful things. That's what it's all about, isn't it? Passing it on. I'll use it for a year or so, then someone else can love it. Our pastor reminds us now and then, there's never been a hearse pulling a U-Haul. Use it up, wear it out, pass it on!