Craft/Sewing Room Update

I'm really excited to share with you guys my updated craft/sewing room today! as you may have read already, I had quite a clean out in here a couple of weekends ago; there was mess and then chaos and then more mess and then thankfully it came together rather nicely, if I do say so myself!

So I decided to replace my Ikea trestle desk legs in favour of the Antonius drawer units. They're made of steel so I figured they would be a great support for my desk top, and heavy machine. I've been using it for about a week now and I'm so glad I got them! Not only are they full of storage space, they are slightly lower which makes sewing much easier!! I got one unit with four wire baskets to hold my paper-crafting things and some of my sewing bits and bobs and my neutral solid scraps that I always use. 

For the other unit I purchased the Antonius frame only, and four of the small matching drawers. In here I hold all of my scraps by colour; pinks/purple, red, blue/green, yellow/white/brown/grey. 

ahh I just love it, the layout of £48 for both has been completely worth it just to have all my scraps nicely organised! It's made tidying up after a project a breeze now.

These Antonius basket inserts are great for organising little things. I found that you can fit two of these inserts per basket, (not the Antonius drawers though) and because they're clear you can see exactly what's in them. 

At only £1.70 each I thought they were a great buy so I bought a bunch of them to store on my regular shelves too! This one holds all my hexies! 

Above my desk I now have a rail system in place to hold all my sewing necessity items like rotary cutters and scissors close by. These are the Ikea Fintorp rails with matching buckets and hooks. I love having my craft things out on display and easy to grab - there's nothing worse than digging through boxes and baskets finding a stitch ripper is there? so this works great for me. 

On the left wall as you come into the room I have two Ikea Bekvam spice racks, which I painted white to blend into the wall. These display my vintage sewing patterns, and jars for buttons, pins and hair grips I use for binding. I also got handy with the hammer and put in a couple of nails on the side of my big shelving unit to keep my rulers in place, they have never seemed to have a good place to be put away before, so this has made me really happy! Did I mention that I love wall storage!? ;) 

On the other side of the room, I have culled alot of my stuff and cleared out a whole Expedit unit!  I was beginning to feel quite cramped in here and I really needed more floor space when laying out quilts etc so it was time for a change. It was mainly books I stored, so Robin built us some shelves in our living room to house them, free'ing up a lot of much needed space! I now just have this old ikea ladder shelf, to store some books, sewing patterns etc as well as my paper storage unit. 
    I'm planning to change this area just as soon as I find myself a nice high-backed rocking chair (just missed out on one on ebay, deep breaths...) to fit nicely in the corner. I think it would be a great little snug place to do some english paper piecing, next to my fire :) I also want to hang a design wall up at some point as I have a lot of wall space now. 

So there you have it, my new and improved sewing space! I hope you enjoyed it, and perhaps picked up some organising ideas of your own :)

p.s. some really sweet new fabric's arrived at the Sew and Quilt shop yesterday, I hope you can take a look! xo

Our First Home: Laundry Room Dreams!

Hi friends! There's not been much sewing going on around here lately as I'm in full DIY mode, and when it hits - I just have to go with it and abandon the sewing machine for a few days in order to get some things done around here! :) As I mentioned in my last post, we managed to get my shelves put up in the laundry room over the weekend. I'm so excited about this, I know it sounds really lame to some, but I just can't wait to put away all my towels and bedlinen on tidy shelves and not in a (cough!!) banana box under our bed!! shocking, I know...

So this is where we're currently at, shelves have been made and put together by my very clever fiancé ;) and I'm almost done with the painting, just one more coat and finito - thank goodness, because it's the most annoying thing to paint, ever!! And when that's complete I can add the final touches to bring it altogether rather nicely :) Here are some of my wish list items for the space.

Yes that's right, I'm dreaming about peg bags and wicker baskets, ha! 

1. I fell in love with this super pretty rug from Urban Outfitters recently, it's so cute but I actually ended up buying a different one as I needed a bigger size.

2. These baskets from IKEA are perfect to hold smaller hand towels and cleaning products.

3 & 6. Completely obsessed with the gorgeous Cath Kidston storage bags, so useful to store sheets in. I'm hoping to make my own as they are a little pricey.

4. The washing bag is so cute too, CK get's me every time.

5. My peg rail we put up last weekend, ideal for hanging brooms etc.

7. An enamel tin to store washing powder instead of displaying my awful plastic tub? Yes please!

8. And a cute peg bag to finish, perfect. 

Happy tuesday! xo

Our First Home: Dining Room Update

We've been quite busy on the house front lately, with lots of ideas planned and DIY's going on over the weekends. Robin sometimes get's fed up with the fact that every weekend - without fail! I always have a DIY job for him to do - whether that be putting up a shelf, hanging some hooks, adding wood paneling to the entrance hall, or even re-doing the bathroom!! But ... I'm always there alongside him, holding the drill, applying the paint and sweeping up after ;) team effort I'd say! 
    So last weekend was no different, there was a new wall shelf to be hung in the dining room. I picked this pretty bland pine shelf up at my local auction for £8, bargain :) with 2 coats of primer and a couple more coats of white satin wood it was good to go!

I went with a white finish as I have a lot of bright painted wooden furniture already. Multicolour chairs, cabinet and a coloured shelf might be a bit overkill, no?! It houses more of my ever-growing collection of kitchen paraphernalia, perfectly :)

(please ignore the mess in the living area in photo above!) I also whipped up these tie-backs for my curtains this morning, just simple bows for a kitschy feel :) just love the cheery print, so pretty. 

I'm sooo excited for this weekend as we are going to be making big shelves for the laundry room, to store all our towels and linen on! Yippee, I really want to make it into a nice space, we're just in the middle of creating a peg rail too. Can't wait to share more with you.
Have you got any home reno plans over the next few days? xo

Our First Home: Dining Room 'Finished'

We had a productive week finishing off decorating the house. The roof in the dining room was fixed so I could finally paint! I cracked on with it straight away, and come the weekend Robin and his dad were putting up the wallpaper. And what a cracking job they did of it, too. I'm in love with my new Cath Kidston chintz wallpaper! They put it up on two of the walls, and the other two walls are just white. I plan to fill that with lots of pictures and kitschy bits this summer; once the carbooting season has began. I've already picked out some curtains I want to put up from my own vintage hoarding collection. The chairs are my charity shop find last summer - for free!! I painted them up in sweet candy colours and finished them off by re-upholstering the chair pad (I just have the green one to do!). 

It's certainly changed alot from that before shot, hey! That was before we moved in, they were renters so it wasn't the prettiest of rooms. Above is the cutest hostess trolley I picked up in the summer. I use it to display my vintage tray collection :) and wheel food in from the kitchen, of course! I hope you all had a fun weekend too. Jessie, xo

Our First Home: Dining room

Our final room to complete in the house is the 'lean-to', which we are going to use as a dining room; it's flooded with natural light and has fantastic double doors leading on from the front room, making it the perfect choice. 

I'm currently in the middle of painting the table white and the chairs are going to be a range of lovely pastel candy colours, then I'm planning to recover them in some pretty fabrics. Can you believe I picked up these cute chairs from a local charity shop for free!

Hope you're all enjoying the festive season, I'll hopefully be finished painting by 2012 ! 

Our First Home: Craft room update

Well here it is, this is my new sewing room / studio for messy jesse. It's the perfect craft space, with lots of shelving and storage for my growing fabric collection. A new addition to this room is a wall-mounted TV over my desk yippee! 

Wowee such a difference hey, It's so amazing what a lick of white paint can do! I haven't got my new scalloped blind or a light fitting in yet so it's not quite there but I couldn't resist giving you an update. I was lucky enough to already have the wall shelves there when we moved in so all they needed was a rough sanding and some fresh paint. The thread rack is handmade by a seller I found on Ebay. I also found a cute little place to hang my bunting :)

Note the victorian fireplace I painstakinly restored for DAYS! I haven't got a proper picture of it before I started on it annoyinly, but it was covered in a ultra thick layer of cream paint which I stripped down using nitro mors solution and a little metal scraper, hopefully won't have to do that again : I My trustee expedit holds my sewing books and my prized collection of Golden Hands encyclopedia's (mentioned in a previous post here). As well as lots of papercrafting bits and bobs. The ladder shelves house an array of sewing notions, threads, trims and paper patterns. I'm still working on this part, I'd quite like to have more of these things on show but I'm not sure how to work this yet.

I've got a new desk by upcycling the old kitchen countertops we ripped out downstairs. It's so sturdy, and a great neutral colour for the room. My old desk from IKEA bowed with the weight of my sewing machine so hoping this won't do the same?

 And the crowning glory... the fabric collection! I've arranged it with vintage sheets, curtains and pillowcases on the bottom four shelves and modern fabric on the two shelves above that, then fat quarters all arranged my colour, topped off with some larger yardage peices including some beautiful linen I brought back from Turkey on a holiday this year (going to be turned into a couple of sofa cushions). Some CK fabric, and a stack of vintage emroidery bits and bobs I've been collecting from charity shops this year. 

Haha my scrap bucket! what a disaster it looks but it actually works quite well for me. I need my scraps relatively easy to get to and not too tidy where it takes me forever to tidy. Do you have any good scrap organising tips? though I'm hoping to clear alot of it in the new year with some scrap-busting projects. A shelf of my vintage sewing baskets and tins store less-frequently-used items, like press studs, zips, alphabet stickers, and button poppers. Hmm have I missed anything out, let's see: deer ornament collection over the mantelpeice, vintage Singer sewing machine and spools of bakers twine = my perfect studio. 

Our First Home: Pyrex collection

OK, so I have officially had the BEST day ever! I've been busy unpacking all my beloved pyrex, enamelware and canisters. I've cleaned them, hugged them, stacked them, tidyied them, (hugged them a bit more) and after hours of deliberation, given them a special place in my 'new' kitchen cabinet. I scored this beautiful peice of furniture locally on ebay, it was in a pretty unloved state then but I gave it some tlc and a fresh lick of paint and it looks as good as new! I'm in love with the formica top, I think it makes a nice contrast to the oak worktops I have on the other side of the kitchen. 

I adore my kitchen now it's finally coming together, we were making the shelves for the pantry today as well - it looks amazing!! can't wait to share more with you...

Our First Home: Update

So I have been MIA these last few weeks; apologies for this :) I have to blame it on the new house, I've been beavering away on it almost every day since we've had the keys.

I'm pleased to say its almost all done upstairs, all the bedrooms and hallway have been given a new lease of life with a lick of paint. The carpets are fitted in the bedrooms, and soon the stairs and landing... I also aquired some GOR-GEOUS silk curtains at an amazing sale price from Laura Ashley, I got them in a nice off-white shade so I can spruce things up with my floral bedlinen and vintage throws. I'll share some pics of the downstairs soon too - things are slowly coming together, the bathroom is almost done and we are going insane! patiently waiting for our IKEA worktops to be delivered so we can finish off our kitchen at long last. Have any of you had experience with IKEA kitchens? 

p.s. we've started moving in some of our stuff (well, my crafty things!) a whole TWELVE boxes!!! haha! it'll be squeezed in somewhere. I'll be back this week with more updates, speak soon.

Our First Home: Kitchen Inspiration

As some of you may know my boyfriend and I will be moving into our own home quite soon. We have lots of work to do and I have so many ideas I thought it would be nice to keep a record of our progress with you. So in honour of this here is my first post under the new series 'our first home'. I hope you enjoy the journey along with me.
Lately I've been gathering room ideas for our kitchen, well every room actually, but I just thought I'd focus on the kitchen today. Whilst in my quest for all things culinary I've noticed a dominent feature... I seem to love yellow and turquoise! Something about these sunny hues make perfect sense for a kitchen, so bright and fresh looking.

                            house of turquoise                                                                                    martha stewart

We've decided to go for these bottom units from IKEA, with a lovely oak wood top. As we only have a small galley kitchen we're doing without the top units and opting for white open shelving as below. I like the relaxed, country feel they give. White brick tiles are going to be fitted behind the units so I'm thinking I may have to go for a pale, lemony yellow colour for the wall to add some colour? what do you think? I do change my mind often so I'm hoping I won't get bored of it anytime soon. Oh, and my big showpeice will be my 1950's turquoise dresser! I'm IN.LOVE with it, I bought it locally through ebay. Such a lucky score! with original turquoise/green formica top. Can't wait to share it with you, it will be holding my ever-growing pyrex collection.

                                       house of turquoise                                                                              house of turquoise

                                   house of turquoise                                                                                     cath kidston

                                             cath kidston                                                                                    garden trading

For our dining area I've already purchased one of these traditional fisherman's pendant lamps. Furniture wise, we have a lovely round wooden table that needs a little tlc and white paint ... cue boyfriend ;) I just need to thrift a couple more dining chairs and give them a pastel makeover! I'm also thinking about this wallpaper for the room, but I'm worried the design may be a bit busy? hmmm...