Our laundry room had nowhere to hang the drying clothing, so I made a spot behind the door. It's perfect, since there's a register right beneath, so the clothing gets drier than if it had been hanging in a corner.
But you can use the same idea. Almost every door opens into a room, and behind it is nothing but dead space. If there is as little as a foot you can hang a wire-coated shelf behind the door, and either use it to hang garments, or just have shelving marching up the wall.
Closet doors, in particular, have the dead space next to them. You can't use it for anything else, usually. Karen Maslowski in Cincinnati
Re: improvising Group: alt.sewing Date: Tue, Sep 30, 2003, 5:57am (EDT+4) From: snipped-for-privacy@shineonus.org (Sunshine=A0Lady) What great improvisations have you come up with? Penny s For years I tried to figure a way to use the ceiling for storage. It seemed such a waste to have that whole ceiling just up there empty when I had a room full of walls and the floor almost totally full. I recently visited a furrier and was allowed to go into the mending and storage room. I happened to look up and there above me was a ceiling totally covered with hangers which had various and sundry fur garments on them. I have not figured out yet how to incorporate this in my sewing room (I only have 8 foot ceilings). I am working on a few ideas. Why should the walls and floors have all the glory?? The only improvisation I have come up with is my hand made cutting table. I am tall and cutting on the bed or dining table was just #$%^&* on my back. After a knee injury several years ago my orthopedic gave strict orders "NO kneeling" for anypurpose so the floor was not an option. Now that my table is just above waist height I no longer have back aches. Sun
Cea wrote I always thought a cutting table on a pulley system would be the ultimate--
Just remembered this Years ago I had a friend do some dresses for me. She had a tiny house 3 bedrooms and 4 kids. Her husband made a pulley cutting, sewing table for her with fold up legs.It was in a small bedroom. When she wanted to cut out something she let the table down, unhooked the legs, which were held in place with a hook and eye, and cut away. The table was almost as large as the ceiling in the room. She would put the sewing machine on the table when she wanted to sew and lower the table to the height she needed when sitting. She also used it to store customers fabric. So as you can tell Cea's idea is not *off the ceiling* at all. JJ
Now I am off to the Home Depot and Lowe's to see about this idea. I have seen lots of pulleys and I only need to decide how large the shelf (in my case) will be. Some of those vacuum suck out the air storage bags and I can store fabric dust free -- think of the possibilities. Of course finding the joist in the ceiling might be a chore - we would not want that big shelf to fall on my other 'down to earth' storage areas or on me either!
The only drawback I can see to this pulley idea is that you can't take advantage of a ceiling light. You'd definitely need to add more direct lighting, unless you have incredibly good outside light.
IF you were to put up something on a pulley you may be able to use some track lighting and put it around the perimeter of the board. It's not the kind of thing I would want in my living room or dining room but it would be ok in a bedroom or even laundry or mud room. No in my house wouldn't make much difference because DH wouldn't let me put it any place. He's not into that kind of storage. He's so neat though he can make any pile look perfect
Doing crafts involves owning and sorting through a lot of stuff. LOTS. Sometimes I have felt as if I have more storage space just by dedicating certain spaces to certain things, and making it easy to get at and put away, so that I can FIND what I need without having to take out everything and make piles to sort through later.
There is no substitute for a dedicated work space.
My current project is to cut out my patterns ahead of time, and put all the pieces for each view in their own big ziplock baggie labeled with the name of the view and the number of the pattern. Then all the baggies for that pattern get put into one big baggie, with the pattern envelope in front so that the picture shows. If I alter a pattern I put the altered pieces in their own zip lock baggie labeled with the number of the pattern, the name (letter) of the view, the name of the person, and the date. Inside that baggie along with the pattern pieces I put a list of what I did, and the measurements I worked from.
I know this sounds totally anal, but I'd need to go through all this stuff anyway, so why not just get the prep out of the way and keep it all together at the same time? Besides, my cat is totally bored by this baggie thing. Paper is another story.
I have a bulletin board for "current" ideas. Right now there are about a dozen patterns up there. About half are similar capes and coats and accessories that will become fake fur things, and about half are dresses. I love the visual cross-fertilization of ideas. Without pawing through a file or a pile, I can see what I am thinking of combining, AND, because I have already done the cut and sort and baggie-ifying part, my chances of losing pieces of the patterns I combine are much less.
Karen replies: The only drawback I can see to this pulley idea is that you can't take advantage of a ceiling light. You'd definitely need to add more direct lighting, unless you have incredibly good outside light.
I wonder about using doors? You know, the cheap, cheap ones that are just veneer and hardboard with some sort of light spacer core. I use one as a table when I want to make curtains. I support it on two trestles from Ikea. The door was marked so I got it for about £sterling7/US$10. It's rigid and very lightweight.
Sally, dreaming of a let-down sewing table in the conservatory...
AGREED Picking up and putting away parts of a project that is currently in progress is a waste of time-- and it's kind of depressing, dontcha think? Ingredients kind of need to compile and multiply until they get to critical mass, then they start to conspire and collaborate about who wants to be part of what. ;-)
Now that my daughter has moved out, i am considering moving my bedroom into my daughter's current room, and my "creative" area into the master bedroom along with her bunk bed and dresser. The big sewing table would stay out for stuff I am doing at the time, and the hollow core door would hang on a wall to be used as a cutting surface. Once things are cut, the door can hang on the wall and I'll have room to pull out the ironing board. Once again, one can always dream!!!
Mom did that when I was a kid. 2 lighweight interior doors, w/out the doorknob cutout, covered with 1" grid contact paper. They stood in a corner when not in use and were laid on top of the pool table when we wanted to cut. Ok, let's be real here. The doors were stood in a corner when we wanted to play pool.
This was more of an inspired idea solution. I have several of those bent-arm task lamps that attached to a desk or table via a plastic "L"-shaped clamp. Over the years the plastic has gotten pretty sorry, and I'm down to one functional lamp. Tried drilling a large hole in a block of wood and "C"-clamping to desktop. Tried drilling a hole in the desktop (it's a large piece of chipboard). Didn't work. But this week, on clearance in a garden department, was a flag/torch holder that clamps to a bannister or deck railing. Was about $3, now much less (they're forecasting snow, for heaven's sake!). Should work beautifully and hold the maps securely out of the work surface area while providing the adjustability for which they were obtained. HTH
Re: improvising (Sally=A0Holmes) I wonder about using doors? You know, the cheap, cheap ones that are just veneer and hardboard with some sort of light spacer core. I use one as a table when I want to make curtains. I support it on two trestles from Ikea. The door was marked so I got it for about =A3sterling7/US$10. It's rigid and very lightweight. Sally, dreaming of a let-down sewing table in the conservatory...
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