Sewing / Guest Room
 

I am looking for any advise or suggestions. It has become clear that my sewing at the kitchen table is not working for our family. I have a small guest room and I am going to use it for my quilting. I don't have a long arm machine so I don't need a huge area and I don't want to give up the bed in there. Any one have any ideas or pictures to share to help me plan my space? The room is only like 10x12

If you and/or your husband are handy, a Murphy bed would be a good space-saver. A desk at the right height would be a good place for a sewing machine. Or you could put a drop leaf table in the room, and cut on one side, and sew on the other. Use the closet for your storage, but be sure you leave a bit of room for your guests to hang their clothes when they are there. If you do it right, you can leave your sewing out most of the time, but have it guest ready in 30 or so minutes when you need to.

I have a similar setup. I have a queen futon vs a regular bed. We rarely have guests so not too much of an issue. I have a dressing table, chest of drawers, 2 end tables as well. My room is 8 x 10. I have one of the craft tables such as sold at Joanns in the middle. Also a small sewing desk. I use the craft table for all my cutting on one end and ironing on the other end with a couple of towels for padding. Its very tight but what I have to work with. The craft table folds to about 12 in wide so I can stow that along wall behind futon if needed. Enough room then for futon to open and people to move around.

My guest room is also my sewing room. It's 12x15 with a queen bed (which I sleep in when I'm up too late sewing and don't want to disturb the Mr.)

I put a white quilt on it which doubles as my design wall.
A dresser on one side of the bed holds many folded fabrics and doubles as a nightstand.
An Ikea shelving unit acts as nightstand/fabric display/ironing board.
I have a "sofa table" as my sewing desk, making an L with the Ikea unit.
Another dresser holds more fabric. I have another shelving unit for strips with pegboard (framed) above.
Opposite the sewing desk is my cutting table. I also have another table for spreading stuff out (probably a mistake)
and I have a Singer 15-91 in a cabinet.
Yes, it's way too crowded (plus the big closet) and time to purge, but all that to say it IS doable.

My BFF had the same dilemma before she purchased a larger home. My ex-husband was a builder, so he built her a Murphy bed, on each side of it were cabinets for storage. When the bed was up, she had him build the underside of the bed so that she could use it as a design wall. Worked perfect for her. She had her TV mounted up on the wall so that it didn't take any counter space.

I have the largest bedroom for my sewing room. We do not have sleep over guest, which is how I love it. We have a small house and must us all our house for ourselves. Oldest Granddaughter lived with us for almost eight years while working and going to college. When she moved out 1-1/2 years ago I grabbed the room.

We have a small 2 bedroom house. We seldom have overnights guests as we moved to AZ which is far away from our kids. BUT we have a high quality blow up Queen sized mattress. We slept on that for 5 days waiting for the moving van.
I could move stuff out of the way to set that up. We could never afford one of those Murphy beds.

The first thing I did when I use a bedroom was put shelves in the closet. I measured the width and went to Lowe's. They cut the wire shelving to the exact width I needed. Put them in myself.

My hubby is pretty handy, and made me this wonderful cutting/pressing/storage table.
Here is what I did with it:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/picture...r-t115294.html

My granddaughter also has no space, so here is what her parents did for her:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/picture...22-t95784.html

Hopefully these might inspire something to work for you! Be sure to show us what you end up doing - we would love to see it.

Thanks guys! Grammatjr I love your pressing table tucked under cutting table, what a fabulous idea!

I have a murphy bed in my sewing room which is very nice. But I also have a queen size frame for our aero bed. I found it for camping, because when I turned 55 I found I could no longer sleep and dress on the ground while camping and my niece had one that she used for guests. It is put away in the camping equipment so I don't know the name. It collapses into an area of 18 inches high, and then 12 inches square. It holds both my husband and I (we are not small) with the air mattress and 2 sleeping bags. So you can set it up just when you need it.

Wrong person to be commenting on this. I took over my son's bedroom when he left home. Our guest room is next to my now sewing room. As much as I love having out of town company it is always a challenge to see where I can find room to put the things that I've put on the guest bed so they have a place to sleep. I asked my DH if I could have the family room for my sewing room as we don't go downstairs much anymore. He thought about it for, oh maybe 90 seconds and said no. Ah well, nothing ventured nothing gained. I would strongly urge you to use containers and as much shelving as the room will allow so you can be organized. My sewing room is packed, but I know exactly where everything is and can go directly to whatever I need. Can't stress the organization aspect enough when you have limited space.

Just saw this, especially #11 & #16 would be good for your situation.
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/pro...fficiency.html

I am in the same process. I will have to share a space with my son’s playroom, I am pretty sure. I would love to nab the L shaped desk in our bedroom that my husband bought and never uses- but it only fits in our room (would take up almost all the playroom if we put in there. And we work opposite shifts, so he is usually napping/sleeping when I have sewing energy (between 7:30-10pm usually) Playroom is about 8x10. However, we are getting my son two 9 square cubicles for storage of toys for his birthday in a few weeks. Those would also work well for fabric and other storage (right now the room is like a tornado went through it and isn’t really a playroom or defined sewing space yet. ) Then, we will move his train table into the room and that is about 3ft by 2 ft, with roll out drawers underneath. Have to find a spot for his easel, a bookshelf, ottoman, rocking chair. Luckily the desk I have is an old sold one with big drawers that I can use for storage- even though it’s not real big maybe 2.5 wide and 1.5 ft deep? I plan to get one of those peg boards for storage on the wall behind the desk.

I have that arrangement. I have a twin bed and the sewing table takes place of a 2nd twin bed in the room. If I have a guest, I consolidate the sewing items under the table. A twin trundle bed would work the same.

My hubby, more ambitious than talented, made me a Murphy bed. We ordered the hardware from Rockler, about $300, and made a queen size bed. When it's up I have a piece of "headliner" on a large roll above the bed case. When it's down it's my design wall. If you're going to have the face of the Murphy as a permanent design wall, it doesn't have to be made from fancy plywood. It's perfect for the guests that are here about 10 times per year. It operates very easily because of the pistons in the hardware. And it locks in place. It's a low bed, about 12" off the floor.
One drawback to the Murphy bed --- it is challenging for us seniors to make it up, but easier than bunk beds!

I would first decide what pieces of furniture will stay. Then decide what pieces can do double duty. Desk could become ironing station, under bed could be fabric storage. If using desk for sewing surface then maybe purchasing a folding ironing board that could hang on closet or bedroom door.

We have a wall bed. Very similar to a Murphy bed except that it is actually attached to the floor and closes up against the wall. The back of the bed when closed / bottom of the bed when opened, is covered with a 4x8 piece of insulation that is covered in flannel. It works great as my design board! It only sticks out @ 22 in from the wall. I love it!

QUILTING CANDY: This is a great idea for my air mattress. It could be in the closet WITH the frame until company comes. Great Suggestion. I NEED a new mattress/box springs for my bedroom anyway.

Somewhere online, and it might have even been on here, I saw a Murphy bed someone had made. When it was folded up up off the floor, there was a table that could be folded out of the part that a lot of ladies are saying is their design wall. The person put her sewing machine on the table to sew.

When we moved this past april we moved into a smaller house and my mother in law had her room we have our room and we had a spare where my husband has the computers but it still has a twin bed when my mother in law passed in june i wanted to move my sewing room into her room from the enclosed florida room which is where i still am we were expecting some guest to visit for a few weeks but they didnt come so now i am am trying to decide if i still want to move out here is near the door and it has a lot of light and i can still see outside when i sew I think i like my area and its even a little bigger then where i was going to move.

I'm with luvstoquilt. I rarely have overnight guests and I have small house, so the good quality queen sized air bed works great for me. Easy to have a comfy guest bed occasionally without losing real estate for sewing constantly.