My sewing room is in a nook, and I have moved furniture and sewing machine table, cutting table, bookcase, dog chair and my stuff so that it is compact for me. I need natural light, so my DH had a solar tube installed to shine sunlight into my little eave. I love my corner of the world, don't need alot of space to sew, don't have a longarm. I iron on my cutting table using a june tailor square up board that is padded and cotton covered. My design wall is a 4 x 8 piece of foam insulation covered with wool batting, and it sits in the office end of the nook. I would try moving around your essentials of sewing and try for different cofigurations. here are pics of my corner of the world.