Saturday, January 15, 2011

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

I can finally see it! A glimmer of light at the end of my Craft Room tunnel :)

Hip Violet Headquarters has always been in a little corner of my living room. It started in the corner of our rental in Denver where we lived the first year, and moved to the dining room of our new house about 2 years ago. It's a pretty tiny space, as craft spaces go, but over the years I got pretty good at organizing and making the most of the space I was lucky enough to have. Here are some pictures of my current work space:
Yes, I sew under the light of a fancy chandelier!It looks pretty good in these pictures because I cleaned it up... Normally there are piles and piles (and PILES) of stuff. Currently my pile of fleece is only about a foot away from the ceiling :). It's a tight space and I NEVER have enough room to store everything I need. Plus if I need to cut things out (fleece, my bib pattern out of fabric) I need to use my kitchen table which isn't always cleaned off or clean!

This house DOES have basement (yay!) but it had some issues before we bought it so they had to gut the whole thing down to the stud walls. So even though we have the SPACE for a studio/office for me, it wasn't nearly ready. And due to time and financial constraints these last few years it's been slow going.

Here is how it looked when we moved in:
Then in September of this year my husband (who is a carpenter and generally handy person - lucky me!) put up the stud walls.This is the North wall with what will be my little shipping "nook" and closet.

A few weeks ago he was able to get the electrical figured out, put in 6 new lights, and insulated.
And today. Today was HUGE! We now have drywall!! It looks like an actual ROOM!!! I can't stop going down there and smiling!

North wallThis room is approximately FOUR TIMES the size of my current work area. Do you know how GREAT it's going to be when I'm moved in? I can hardly wait! It will probably be a few more weeks until I can start moving (which is fine since I'm trying not to sew much this month!), and when I do it will be a little bare-bones for a while. Eventually my husband is going to build a wall of cubbies and a desk on the South wall, and I'll have a large cutting/ironing table on the West wall with lots of storage underneath.

So there you have it. I'm hoping by February I have a real live sewing studio! I think it's going to be a whole new chapter in the Hip Violet book and I can't WAIT to start it! YAY!!