The Sewing Room

My sister in law, Corinna, is a busy gal.  She has a business called Lilypad where she sells all sorts of fun stuff like baby slings and purses and really cool aprons.  She also sells Norwex products.  And she has 3 kids.  Did I mention she homeschools?

So, her sewing room space is an important multipurpose room for her.  And, as happens to the best of us, it had gotten away from her a bit...or, in her words, had become "a scary disaster area".

A few weeks ago I went over and left her with some homework.  Here is what it looked like that day.

The assignments I left Corinna with were to purge as best she could, move the large shelf into the closet area, and purchase some see through storage bins.  Today I returned and we spent about three hours making her space pretty again.

First we worked on fabric.  As you can imagine, Corinna has a lot.  She sorted it into categories and then we filed it in clear bins for easy access.

We put all the fabric bins on the large shelf in the closet along with a couple bins for current projects and a bag of items to mend.

Next, we tackled the built in shelf.

I tidied up Corinna's products.  One shelf for Norwex and one for Lilypad.  I also organized all her gift wrapping items onto the 3rd shelf.  On the floor we have a few items that are rarely used.

On to the desk.  

We sorted all the items on top and inside and gave every last safety pin a home.  One side of desk drawers became Lilypad storage and the other side Norwex. 

 We used storage containers that Corinna already had but just moved them around a bit.  

We also moved the filing cabinet and set of drawers to the space between the wall and desk.  We were able to house all Corinna's scrap booking items in the drawers which gave us more bins for fabric.  Yay!

The end result.

I know it feels overwhelming when you find your space has gotten out of control, but if you follow these steps, you'll be back on track in no time.  First, purge.  Corinna and I had a bag for garbage, a box for give away, and another box for items that needed to move to a different room of the house.  Next, sort.  Put all like items together.  Figure out where they should be stored that will be most convenient for  you.  If it's hard to put something away...chances are, you won't.  Finally, don't forget to practice keeping everything in it's place.