Part 11 Office & Studio

Housebuilding Log 11 – An Office…..and a place to Sew

During the time of the digging, we were really very busy with the chartering business. The digging kind of got away on us, and seeing as we were foolishly paying by the day, instead of by the job, the crew just kept digging into the hillside. This meant we were left with quite a big space. So, rather than crying about it, we made this into a bonus space – room for a good sized office and sewing-craft room.

After the tiling was done, we laid out the desk area with masking tape.
One of the first pieces of ‘furniture’ Ed built was a table with a formica top. Perfect as a beginner workspace!
Some junk started filling this space, along with a computer and printer.
This was a good temporary setup and certainly beat having nothing, but eventually Ed did the measuring up, and started making framework for cabinets and drawers, to store all the stuff an office needs.
This is all painted plywood, and formica tops. There is even a ‘his’ and ‘hers’ section!
This all took I guess 4 or 5 months and was heavily being used at all stages, being the ‘command center’ of the house.
The next big empty space along the back of the house would become a sewing center. And also a general craft and work area.
The first thing a sewing room needs is a sewing table, so Ed built a nice one with a white top to fit the nice industrial machine I have.


Next up is a big huge work table. The sewing machine table is set up at the far end, same height as the work table. The work table is just a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood, painted. I can cut and gouge and mess around all I want, and then when it’s all screwed up, just a light sand and a white paint job, and it’s all fresh and new again.
Under this table is a shelf low to the floor for all kinds of storage.

This place was getting pretty junky looking, that’s for sure. The fabric rolls especially, I had stacked all along the walls and it was not really ideal, from looks, cleanability or just trying to find things.
So Ed built me some really great fabric storage racks.
I was able to get the fabric rolls put up, and under the work table stored most of my sewing supplies.

But even better, was to get a whole set of cabinetry to fill up the far wall, and get all my junk nicely organized and put away.