In sewing studio space, no real estate should go undeveloped - help me style my blank wall!
Where we are Today
The day after Christmas we woke up and decided to jump into a job that we had been wanting to do for quite a while – re-paint the studio space and rearrange the whole room. It had been a teal green colour on most of the walls since 2016, and I was ready to refresh the space with a simple, fresh white which was more modern and easy to style.
We managed to get the whole space prepped, holes patched and painted in just over 24 hours, which was quite amazing seeing we came down with c0vid at the same time. Hubby was over the moon because not only did this mean the messy part was over super fast, we also managed to complete the whole project with zero trips to Bunnings, which is always something to celebrate.
When we put everything back again, we moved the remaining kids who have their desks and computers in here to the back of the room. This effectively divided the room in half width ways rather than length ways, meaning they get the darker half of the room further from the windows. They really don’t mind this at because they are mostly in here at night. As I’m here during the day, having more natural light is perfect for working more productively, and let’s face it … I thrive on natural light!
We were able to re-use a lot of the furniture we already had because it still worked great.
Most of the furniture we have in here is very recognisably from Ikea. You just can’t beat them for having simply the best range and value for kitting out spaces like a home studio. Their products are affordable, easily hacked for optimising and just look really good!
I kept my corner desk where my machine sits (this is discontinued but you can find a similar shape here)because I still love the size and shape. In the furniture re-shuffle, I gained a set of Alex drawers that one son no longer needed and also put in a longer Linnmon desk in front of the windows that was surplus to our home office.
We moved the Billy bookcases along the back wall, and thankfully everything was really easy to slide around without needing to unpack or disassemble anything.
The result of all this rearranging was a sizeable gap along the wall between the Billys and my desk. Cue the really bad before pic! But hey, if you don't note where you've come from, you never celebrate where you get to!
Planning the Update
Of course, in an organised space, no good real estate should go undeveloped, so I got to planning what I wanted to do with it. Ideally, I’ll be filming in front of this space, so I wanted to make something functional and also aesthetically pleasing.
One of my needs was a set of deeper drawers for storing my pattern inventory and some larger items that are good to keep on hand but out of sight. So, I set about to find what would work in that floor space, hopefully the same height as the Alex drawers. According to the measurements, the Nordli set of drawers would fit in the gap perfectly with some creative assembly. We plan to cut down another Linnmon desktop to place over the top of it. You can never have enough workspace … am I right??
I decided to that I wanted to try some pegboards on the wall again, something quite ironic as we used to have one large pegboard that completely covered this wall. I’d had a complicated relationship with it – I loved how it looked, but struggled to use the space effectively for my needs. I like things very uncluttered, and a pegboard no matter how well organised, still displays a lot of stuff in full view.
It was fun playing around with new ideas on this wall. We measured up the space and did a scale model in Photoshop and Blender to be able to play around with choices before we had to commit.
I can't wait to get something pretty and functional into this space!
Inspiration Board & Ideas
Here’s my inspiration board showing the products I’d like to get from Ikea:
The pegboard will be mounted above the desktop, and then there’ll be two shelves about that. A tasteful sprinkle of plants amongst the baskets, books and knickknacks that will be up there too, and the overall effect should be nice!
I don't know yet if everything I order will be useful or needed, but it's great to try a range of things irl, and have the option of returning them if necessary.
You’ll notice two colours of pegboard shown on my mood board because I really don’t know which one to choose. That's because I'm drawn to the white, but the designer part of me wants to be daring and go with the brown!
Here's the digital render of how the white pegboards look on the wall, and where everything will potentially go in the space.
Now spot the difference!
This is styled with wooden pegboards of course, and the shelf supports here are white instead of natural.
I do love the idea of a warm wood tone on the wall. These pegboards are a lacquered mdf panel, versus the white pegboards which are painted.
Here you can see I've digitally plonked some colourful quilt blocks on there to try and see this in my space.
My main problem is that I can’t seem to find a single image online of someone who’s used the wood look pegboard in their craft/sewing studio other than an Ikea image.
I’ve seen the wooden ones in more industrial style set ups with beefy tools hung on there, but come one everyone - where are the pretty Pinterest pics??
So, I’d really like to see one styled with crafty type stuff hung on it, and also how the white container system that Ikea sells will look against the brown background. I’m a bit afraid that with more colourful items added to this mix the end result will be quite chaotic.
I’m trying to bear in mind that the finished look will not be bare like this – for either colour pegboard it will be full of storage and quite busy, even tho I will try to keep it as clean as possible. White is always a fresh backdrop for displaying things on, but wood can give a classy and warm vibe.
Just to remind you, here's another look at how a white one can look when styled...
Which one is your preferred look? I'd love to hear your feedback - hit me with why I need white or wood pegboards, send pics, links or anything other ideas you can see working for this space.
Stay tuned to see a great follow up post where I share what we end up putting into this space!
I can't wait to find out either!
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