Friday, August 3, 2012

The k4j Designs Studio.

I took the opportunity last week to take some pictures of my studio.

I've been meaning to for ages now, but I'd no sooner gotten it all set up and I got super busy with projects galore, and I'm afraid the Studio looked rather 'lived in', if you know what I mean. (As an aside, my next Studio most certainly, definitely, absolutely will NOT have a carpet floor! Threads are worse than pet hair. Oh my word...)

Anyway, my Mum came to stay last week, and the Studio is the only spare bedroom we have, so it got a very thorough going-over and the furniture was packed to the side to fit a bed in. After she left, I put the room back to normal and snapped a few piccies before the loose threads and tiny off-cuts of fabric could take over again.

Here's where the magic happens - my glorious large desk. The  curtains on the window open really wide to allow loads of natural light.

The desk is made from two Ikea Expedit shelving units and a hollow-core internal door. The yellow stripe along the front edge of the desk is a measuring tape (sealed in place with sticky-tape) - so useful.


I spray-painted the door/table top as a quick fix, but gloss enamel paint would have been much more durable - there are scratches galore.

I used a roll of non-slip rubber matting between the top and the shelving to prevent the table from sliding, and also to protect each piece of furniture.

As the table top is very lightweight and not designed to carry weight this way, when I'm not using my sewing machines I move them to the sides (over the supportive shelving units) otherwise the top would sag pretty quickly.


In case you can't tell, I'm a BIG fan of Ikea Expedit storage. All of my fabrics, interfacings, personal patterns and dress bags are stored in the big boxes for easy access.

The open pigeon holes are generally reserved for project work and my threads sit on top so I can quickly see if I have the right colour.


I used to hang dresses from a rack over the door, but during busy times it was difficult to walk through the doorway, and I was concerned about the weight causing damage to the door hinges. The current arrangement works much better. I found the truss in the roof (the timber above the plasterboard - this is important as there is no way the plaster alone would support the weight of all those dresses) and screwed in two cup-hooks, roughly 110cm apart. From each hook is a short length of chain, and at the bottom of each chain is a caribeener just big enough to hold a 16mm (5/8 inch) diameter, 120cm (four foot) long piece of wardrobe rail. Voila!


Continuing my theme of separating everything into boxes, these ones hold the chunkier bits and bobs - zips, ribbons, overlocking threads, tools, elastic, boning, beads... As you can see, the shelves are yet to go on the wall, making it annoying to get into the box on the bottom of the pile, which is of course usually the one I need!


All in all, the Studio has become a functional little workspace. I wish sometimes it was a functional big workspace, but one must work with what one has for now!

1 comment:

  1. Very impressive... :o) Those boxes are certainly a great idea, & hold sizeable quantities.

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