looking for opinions on IKEA furniture for my sewing space
 

Hi all,
We are looking for an efficient and attractive way to store my fabric stuff in our guest room down here in Florida. I've looked at wardrobe/cabinets at Lowe's, Home Depot and IKEA. The Lowes' one got terrible reviews. The Home Depot Closetmaid one got two good reviews but only two reviews. I really like the looks of the PAX cabinets at IKEA and am torn between two styles. The Birkeland is one. It can have four shallow drawers on the bottom and shelves above. I can't really find any reviews about the durability of the wardrobe units. I thought maybe some of you could let me know what you think. DH is not very handy but can assemble furniture. He is not confident about redesigning and modifying. I want something that works but still looks nice for when we use the room for company. Okay, I'd also like it to look nice when I'm using it instead of my space at home where the storage is not the greatest and everything ends up in a hodge podge frequently.
Thanks for your thoughts,
lots2do

I love the table I purchased on line from them.

We are moving in a few weeks and I get to furnish a large sewing room. I will be using the Borgsjo cabinets in white with glass doors from Ikea for my fabric storage. I can fit 3 in a row on 1 wall, and 4 bookshelves from the same system on another wall. The Hemnes cabinets are really nice too, but they are 3 times the price. We had a PAX wardrobe in our bedroom and I liked it, but it is very tall and the top shelf was hard to reach. My DH can put anything together but the PAX wardrobe was difficult because it is so tall. It is not a one person job. Goo luck with your choice of cabinets.

Google the group called ikeahackers - you'll get several ideas from the site. Another place I found to look for storage ideas is the photo site called flickr.com - this link takes you to a group called Operation: Sewing Room Organization

http://www.flickr.com/groups/operati..._organization/

You're bound to get some good ideas from these pictures. Hope this helps!!

I think Ikea furniture would be great in a sewing room!

Ikea furniture IS terrific for a quilt room. I wanted white bookcases to cover one entire long wall - I bought 5 "Billy" bookcases and the end ones on each side have double glassed doors. The center one is skinny as it holds a ton of books. The bookcases are wonderful! Gives a nice organized look to the room and it matches the kitchen cabinets (out of the original kitchen) on the other long wall (bases & wall cabinets), which gives a nice clean, uniform look to the room. The walls are painted Antique Filoli (which is a deep, rich beige color) and all trim in the room is Dove White, which also matches the cabinetry. Wood floors and a nice carpet, and some antiques -- its the room I love the most in the entire house. Great value for the money!

My sewing room is from IKEA. It's wonderful!!

Thank you all for the advice and the pictures too! I spent a good amount of time checking out the flicker pictures too. We are going to go back to IKEA to look at our options again soon. Last time was our first time there and it was pretty overwhelming. I am excited about the possibilities!

Just one piece of advice.. do layout your space on graph paper , before buying... I have seen good ideas gone bad .. because the scale of the selected pieces did not correspond with the "real" space. Make sure you take into account the door swings space.

Sewnsewer2 that is an awesome room. Here is the link on the qb regarding the cutting table that was used with Ikea products. My boyfriend and I will tackle this in the fall when its not as hot to work outside but Ikea is 2.5 hrs away from me so a lot of thinking has to go into this. Good luck tho!

Oops forgot the link, :( http://www.quiltingboard.com/mission...l-t224328.html

Yes, we'll be careful with measurements etc. That's good advice. :)

IKEA furniture is fabulous for sewing rooms. :) We purchased a table (right) and then an additional top-only that we placed on some cube storage units purchased from Kmart. It's wonderful because it's all sold separately!

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot...23637100_n.jpg

I love IKEA when I lived in Germany that was my favorite place to shop. I miss that store so much!

Oh Jennalyn, I love your set up!

Thanks, the tall cabinet is not IKEA tho. My room looks different now because #1 it's a mess from working in there and #2 because I have a lot more stuff in there now. These pics were takes a few years ago.

Jennalyn,
I remember when you posted that picture before. It's a great setup. Will have to check out the tables too, next time we go. :)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]423967[/ATTACH]My cutting table isfrom Ikea. had it shipped here.

We put 3 PAX wardrobe units including doors (from IKEA) side by side in our laundry room. It looks great and the PAX units are very strong. We got extra shelves and brackets just in case we wanted to change the configuration of the shelves over time. That has really paid off. I wanted to be able to put standard plastic bins (like from Walmart) on each shelf, so I considered that when I decided how many shelves to get. We also put 2 drawers at the bottom of each unit, and that has been real handy too. The PAX units and shelves are so strong, they don't sag like other less expensive units.

DH assembled it, easily, on living room floor and I helped carry it into the laundry room. We stood them up and then DH anchored them to each other (to hold them close to each other) and then to the wall (we live in earthquake country).

We liked them so much, we went back and got more PAX units (without the doors this time) and put them in our guest room closet....yea!....more room for more fabric. Again we got extra shelves, just in case our needs changed, and sure enough, we have made changes over the last 5 years 2 or 3 times. Almost all the extra shelves are now in use.

We had to drive 2 hours + to get to the nearest IKEA, so IKEA let us open all the packages to verify that there were no chipped or missing pieces. We did change out one shelf with a ding on its corner, and we discovered we were short a couple shelf brackets. So we were able to go home knowing everything was complete and in perfect condition.

It looks beautiful and I would recommend it to anyone!

I have been a huge fan of IKEA for nearly 30 years. My bedroom, guest room, both my daughter's rooms (they took with them when they flew the nest) and of course, my quilting room - ALL IKEA!! I truly believe it's the best value for my money. Billy Bookcases with glass doors, Expedit 12 cube wall system, Hemnes Bedroom dressers, even our sofa, mattresses, and Bedframes (one queen rattan and one full metal), not to mention all the wonderful fabrics IKEA sells! I'm fortunate to have an IKEA 40 minutes from my house here on Long Island. I swear they didn't pay me a dime to post this!!

I have Ikea bookcases, two tables side by side for my cutting tables with drawer units under the tables and I love them. I also have one of the bookshelves with the baskets for materials and I love that too. I put solid doors on the bottom half of the bookcases and use the top half for displays. I love going into a quilt store or see someone's sewing room with knick knacks. It makes it so much more personal and cute.

Oh yes I'm a newbie to Ikea and I love love that store.

At my LQS they used Ikea units. THey put 2 together and laminated a top to them - under the laminate they put a metal sheet then topped it with the laminate - so now you can use magnets to hold your cloth down for cutting ect. Genius!

Thank you so much, Alice, for your response. This was exactly what I was wondering about. We are waiting to hear from a company who puts in murphy beds and cabinets to see what they can do for us but I am still strongly considering this option as well.
Have a good one!
lots2do

PS And thanks to everyone else who has also taken the time to respond to this post.

Ikea has nice furniture. I love it. They are really good at putting together multiple units to make exactly the configuration you want. I was going to put pieces together to make a sewing table a few years ago. I was saving the money but didn't get it. A friend exchanged a custom sewing table for a bridesmaid dress for his daughter. The table is awesome. Luckily the table will last forever.( the marriage only lasted 6 months) I plan on heading to Ikea tomorrow to buy some storage things for my room. They are also a good source for pillow forms to cover. Much less expensive and better quality than JoAnns.

I love ikea!

You cannot beat Ikea when it comes to price and quality. I have a Billy bookcase I bought 30 years ago when we lived in Germany...as good today as the day I bought it. I bought more Billy bookcases here (these with doors) for fabric storage. I made the mistake of buying a big lunking wardrobe from Lowe's and paid several hundred dollars for it. I HATE it and want it out...the config is awful. I could do so much more with a couple more Billys!

Good tip on the pillow forms. I wouldn't have known that! The Billy bookcases look great. I might get a skinny, long one to put along my banquet table for little cubby storage. Good to know that the storage units even survive being moved from a different country - that's impressive!

Hi lots2do, I had stacking cabinets with wood doors from Ikea. (I have no idea what the name/style were called.) I liked them. The wood doors kept dust and sun off of my fabric. I had three (arranged vertically). There was a space in between each of the three cabinets and my rulers fit nicely there. If I had pulled a bunch of fabric out to choose from I had to refold them and stack them nicely or they wouldn't fit back in. That was a good thing - I couldn't leave the fabric all messed up! :) I got rid of the cabinets back around Thanksgiving to make room for our 2 new dogs. I really do miss them and my fabric is now in Rubbermaid bins. It's taking up just as much space and it's so much harder to find the piece of fabric I want. My husband is not that handy, either, and we didn't have too much trouble putting them together. I think you'd probably be happy with them.

very nice!!!!

I also love IKEA, but make sure you can either cut a hole to lower your machine or somehow plan for that. Although the photos pictured above look nice, some of the set ups are really not ergonomically correct, and not good for your back, shoulders, neck and body.

I use Ikea as well for storage under my long arm in my studio. it keeps every neat and tidy, relatively inexpensive, [ATTACH=CONFIG]424822[/ATTACH]

Thanks, Cindy!
lots2do

Thanks, everyone, again for sharing your thoughts. We are still in the planning stages but this gives us more food for thought, so to speak!

I have a twelve drawer kitchen island with a cutting board top from IKEA ..... and love it! :)

I love my IKEA sewing room!
I agree with the advice to lay the room out on paper before going to the store or ordering (there is a lot of information available on the IKEA web site for dimensions). I was initially concerned about the possibility of vibrations under the sewing machine but that has really not been a problem. However, I have found the ergonomics to be an issue. With the table I chose (the kind where you purchase the legs separately) that the table top was not able to be modified to support the weight of the sewing machine. There are a couple of great tutorials on how to modify a solid table to drop down the sewing machine but this table top would not work (hollow inside). Therefore, I am having a very clever friend of mine build a new solid table top that will allow the sewing machine to be lower and flush with the top of the table. MUCH better for long hours of sewing. Have fun! So many possible configurations!

After lots of wavering on what kind of cabinets I wanted, we finally just went to Lowe's because I was not getting anywhere. I was going to just have a whole wall of base cabinets and it never felt just right. So when we went to order 'something' just to get started I saw this hutch type cabinet on display there. I knew instantly that I wanted it and so that's what we went with. It is an upper and lower set of kitchen cabinets, with a set of over the range size in the middle. We had to add a trim piece between each layer. (still not painted in my pic) I went with glass doors so the colors of fabric would show through a bit, but you can use wood doors too.

Wow! Thanks for the photos and advice, all of you. I've been without Internet for almost a month so this was a nice surprise! Bills wife, I love that setup.

dejong...I loved reading how you made your storage table. I want one of those, too, now! Thanks for posting!