I have my sewing machine in a cabinet, so I also have 4 drawers on the right side, which hold a lot of things. Some of those things I used to keep to the right of my machine like: sewing machine needles, bobbins, machine feet, extra pins, pinking shears, hand sewing needles, cleaning tools for my machine and fmq gloves. To the right of my machine now, I have about a 2' wide space that has a fabric box which holds rulers, seam rippers, scissors, snips, fabric markers and hand sewing needles. I also have a small box that holds my necessary tools for changing feet, needles, a long tweezers, stiletto, thread snips and other frequently used items. I have 2 spool/cone holders and a desk Ott Lamp on this space too. I still have some space to keep spools/cones of thread handy I'm using for the current project. My suggestion would be to get out all the things you'd like to have close by and see how much space it takes up. You might want to get a small stackable drawer set to keep on top of your table.