In March, we're going to be moving to a house that is mostly finished, but there are 3 rooms that are unfinished. I will have a room over a 2 car garage for my quilting room! The walls are slanted on 2 sides. There is 1 dormer window, and 1 window on a straight wall. I'm in 7th heaven, but need ideas on how to plan good use of the space. Can you give me some ideas, please?

I'm excited for you! Your room seems to the be same as Judy Martin's sewing room. Check out how she arranged hers. http://www.judymartin.com/Sewing-Room-Judy.cfm

Can you post a picture of the room? That may help, as I'm not picturing it.
:)

Thanks for answering!

The first picture shows the wall with the dormer window. The second is just to the right of the first picture and shows the window on the straight wall.

Do the pictures help?

Thanks! There are a lot of similarities to Judy's space!

I'd say put the storage along the slanted walls. You don't want the working space where you'll hit your head on the ceiling.

Good thing it isn't my room. I would place a chair where I could look out at the mtns. and I would not get much quilting done.
Ok, so I would, but it would be hard.
Lucky you to be getting such a great room. I think the link to Judy's room will be very beneficial. Also, Google 'sewing rooms' and you will get lots of ideas.
Have fun and enjoy your new home and room.

I would plan a design wall big enough for a king size quilt to be laid out on :mrgreen: a smaller one to use for inbetween projects... (Hey it's my dream :wink)
LOTS of storage, and good sized cutting and ironing stations... a nice BIG sewing table too!!!

I think layouts are personal... I like to sew and then get up and move to press my pieces. I need to move around every little while, others want to be able to swivel their chair to do this. I would like a small area next to my machine for a mini pressing station for when I paper piece, though.

By the way...besides the beautiful mountain views you have, I think your city is beautiful too!!! I loved driving through downtown, and at Christmas that year it was spectacular!!! :D:D:D

Looks like FUN!

My only suggestion is to put in extra electrical circuits. I have a converted bedroom however hubby put in two extra circuits, for a total of three which service the room: one for my iron, one for the lighting, and one for everything else. I didn't realize that an iron uses up most of a standard 1,500 watt circuit, so it's nice to have all the extra power. One fun thing, he ran the wiring for the iron's circuit so that I could shut it off by way of a light switch next to the door so I never forget to turn it off when leaving.

Keep posting photos as you move along, it is so fun to see.

Welcome! :D

I'll bet you're excited about your future quilting studio! Here's a web site that may help: http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_g/g-412.html

Have you ever read "Creating Your Perfect Quilting Space: Sewing Room Makeovers for Any Space and Any Budget" by Lois L. Hallock? I borrowed it from the library and found it helpful.

I'm in the process of planning my new quilting room also. We're moving right after Christmas and I'll have almost the entire upstairs for my sewing room. The house itself is fairly small, but the second floor is all one room. There are two large closets, one of which I'll probably use for my granddaughters' toys and other belongings that they keep at our house. We're hoping to get a television and small couch to put on that side of the room. And I have to allow some space for bookshelves and possibly a desk. But the rest will be mine. There are five windows, one north, one south, and three east, so it's well lit. The ceiling is slanted on one side, but not the other. I have a large, older dining room table that will work well as a cutting table once we add risers. I should have space for a decent-sized ironing table and of course for my sewing table. There's enough wall space for a design wall. I'm tentatively planning to store my extra fabric in the large closet on "my" side of the room. The upstairs is freshly painted and newly carpeted. I'm really looking forward to getting organized! :D

Sandy

Your room is going to be beautiful. You really can do a lot with all the space. Make sure you have a good cutting table. I'm sold on my adjustable supports from IKEA. They look like saw horses but are wonderful. They can be adjusted lower for a sewing table when needed and adjusted higher when cutting. Really saves on the back. But then again I don't have as big of an area as you do!
I can see beautiful wooden shelving for sewing supplies and a beautiful closet when you walk into it you see a beautiful display of nicely folded fabric. Lots of lighting throughout, may be you can have the outlets put on the floor so your cords aren't standing out. I could go crazy with this room I'm so excited for you. Please send pictures with the progress.

Great place, I'll post some pictures of my sewing room, I'm almost finished with it. I use it as a guest room so I have to put everything away when family comes.

Nancy

When I was redoing my sewing room I found a couple of web sites where people had posted many pictures of their sewing rooms. (Google is our friend!) Here's one of the sites.
http://www.younge.com/sewing%20rooms.htm

I started collecting pictures of everything I liked. Then I called in our cabinet builder and showed him what I wanted. It's turned out nearly perfect.

Many of us have posted photos on this web site of our sewing rooms too. I know Jim's Gem's sewing room was one of my favorite and I have fabric cabinets very similar to hers. :lol:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-11041-1.htm

My suggestion then is to just start collecting many, many photos.

This is my sewing room shortly after it was finished.
http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-17118-1.htm

Maybe this is too obvious, I would start with a scale drawing of the space and make templates of minimum sizes you need for sewing, cutting, quilting areas etc. If you machine quilt, Kola makes some great tables, see how they would fit. Don't forget to make walls with actual usable height so you know where on the floor you can actually stand up. I love having the window to my left, I can turn easily to see the view and the light is good. After you figure out furniture, storage, draft a lighting plan that puts it where you need it for sewing, cutting and your design wall. There are some great fixtures that use natural light florescent bulbs. You will have a great room.

You are all so helpful! I'm taking lots of notes - it looks like I have a lot of research to do! Thanks for the recommendations for the book and the websites! :)

The sewing room has a work triangle. Cutting-sewing-pressing. It needs to flow. I like having an opportunity to get up every so often.

Let me know when you are finish! HA Love the looks of the room.

I'm planning a new sewing room too, in our attic so I have the same issues with sloping ceilings etc. So I'm following along and getting some good tips from everyone here! :-D

Something that I'd like, as well as the 'flow' that Mad mentions, is some kind of L-shaped arrangement to the left of where I sit at my machine, so that when I'm putting on a border, quilting or binding a large quilt, it can carry the weight of it. Ideally I'd like this to slide in and out from under the desk but then come up so it's on the same level. My DH LOVES these little challenges I set him! :mrgreen:

I'd thought of putting my main desk along the wall under the eaves - mine start at around 3' from the floor, but making it double worktop width, ie 4' so that large quilts will have plenty of room to back up. I figure this is dead space anyway because of the head banging thing! I saw on Leah Day's website that she recommends this space behind your machine when quilting rather than an open backed desk where the quilt goes over onto the floor.

Sorry to be so long-winded - brevity is not my strong suit!

One thing i loved in an old farm house we lived in years ago was the upstairs (we have a very steep pitched roof) and the farmer who had built the house used every bit of space he could for storage, building closets and cubbies into the walls where the roof-line sloped. Since you are at rough framing stage, keep in mind all the space that is going to be hidden by the walls and think of all those shelves of fabric you can put there! And Yes!!! lots and lots of electrical outlets, that way if you decide you want to move your equipment you are not limited to one or two walls or corners.

I don't even know what brevity is when it comes to posting. :mrgreen:

I was going to put my sewing area in the open part of the room, but I like your idea of putting the sewing work area with a double worktop width bumped up to the eaves so large quilts will have plenty of room to back up, but won't go on the floor. My slanted eaves start at about three feet from the floor, too. I was going to put my cedar chest there and possibly some bookshelves, but it might be wiser to do what you're suggesting. There should still be enough wall space for my cedar chest. That would put my southern window to my left. Then I can put my cutting table in the open with plenty of space around it. Hmmm...might work well.

Thanks for the idea! :-D

Re the cutting table - I was going to splash out and get the Varde free standing kitchen unit from Ikea. It has drawers with glass fronts which I thought would be good for FQs and is a good height for standing at. I'd thought of asking DH to put a hinged flap of extra worktop at one side so I can make it double width for laying out larger tops for basting or trimming; I just saw today that a lady on here, athomesewing has one in her studio and she's decorated the fronts of the drawers with fabrics in colour values - it looks wonderful! Hang on, I'll find the link... Here it is - the bottom two pics.

http://www.ikeafans.com/galleries/index.php?u=97481

Edited to say: here's a better link http://www.flickr.com/photos/athomesewing/

What great ideas! I like the idea of having the back of a wide (deep) sewing table go against a sloping wall - this will keep the quilt from hanging over the back of the table and falling on the floor.
There are such crazy sloped walls in this place and not much straight wall space. I really have to plan well to use every nook and cranny! :-D

My only full height wall will be the dividing wall that we put in between my sewing room and what will be the bathroom. This will have to be the design wall. I guess in an awkward space, you have to start with what MUST go where then fit the rest around it.

I was initially concerned about reaching the back of a 4' desk to dust but then I realised that when I do a large quilt, it'll do the job for me! :mrgreen:

Amazing that life's little problems are so easily fixed if we just proceed and don't get bogged down.

WOW! How wonderful for you! I was just cruisin' this site while eating lunch and am itchin" to get back to my project - but I wanted to take the time to share your excitement. Check out the book "Dream sewing spaces" which has lots of great ideas. The photos, however, are totally unrealistic in that the spaces are CLEAN (can you imagine??) lol Enjoy the planning and especially playing in your new room!

I love all of the ideas and suggestions here!!! I am now rethinking my room's layout to incorporate some of these ideas into it. :D:D:D

Rilene, did you ever post photos of your new sewing space? I went looking but did not see any.
Sandy

And even then you will discover you forgot something....but you will have all the basics and can rearrange to your heart's content. Have a wonderful time with your new space.

My sewing room is only partly done. In the end, I don't have the whole area above our 2 car garage - just half of it. Much of my sewing stuff is still in boxes! I've done some quilting, but my room is definitely not finished!

I have some lower kitchen cupboards tucked in along the lower part of one sloping wall. The rest of the room, however, is a mess! My sewing "table" is a board laying across two tall cardboard boxes. I have odds and ends of garage sale furniture.

Maybe I'll be able to post photos in a year or two!