Vintage Wool for Sale

I’ve actually had some time, so I’m working on/in the sewing room.

(I’m finally getting around to the dresser, I can’t wait to share as I make progress!)

And I’m clearing out some fabric…which is hard for me because I’m a little bit of a hoarder.  Especially when it comes to gorgeous fabric.

But I just don’t have room for it all! So I’m selling some.

I have all this gorgeous wool suiting that I inherited from an older friend.  It’s all such amazing, high quality stuff.  It’s all brand new and in great shape.  I’m keeping a lot – trust me.  But what I can’t keep, I’m hoping will find loving homes. :)

Most is here on Bonanza.

And some is here on eBay.

And maybe some will even go on to Etsy.

Hopefully you or someone you know will give this fabric a loving home! I will keep listing as I go through my fabric! :)

How Should I Refinish This Dresser?

Wow, I’m just asking for all kinds of help lately, aren’t I? But isn’t that what blogging is all about? :)   So, do I paint it or stain it?

Images from here and here.

Okay, so here’s what’s going on. As a part of the great sewing room organization of 2013, I figured I should actually start working on this dresser I got from my aunt.

See all that junk on top? Yeah, this dresser’s just been sitting here collecting junk, which is pretty much the opposite of its intended function. (The junk is supposed to go inside the dresser, not on top.)

Last year (or longer ago than that?) I got this dresser from my aunt. It used to be my lola’s (Filipino grandma) and it’s just been sitting in my aunt’s garage.

I generally don’t love dressers for sewing room storage – they’re meant to hold clothes, not sewing gear. The drawers are usually too deep, don’t slide easily enough, and the dimensions of the dresser itself is usually all wrong. My dream is to have kitchen-type cabinets of all shallow-ish drawers. (I had something pretty much ideal when I was living at home with my parents, so I’m spoiled!)

But this dresser actually is pretty great. It’s 6 feet long. Yes, 6 feet long. So its proportions are more along the lines of something you’d special order in the kitchen department. And it’s just over 29” tall, which is almost exactly the height of my sewing table – so as an added work surface it’s going to be ideal. The drawers are still a little deeper than I’d like, but they generally slide very well, so I think I can make this piece work.

You can see that the style is such that all the drawers touch. Well, over time, they’ve sort of started to stick to each other, probably from swelling and expanding and whatnot. So I’m getting on sanding and planing down the drawers a bit.

I'm using an old planer of my dad’s that I found in the garage. :) Hey it works! I think the blade could use a bit of sharpening, which I’ll get on. I learned all about hand planes from Tommy on Ask This Old House.

This is my first time using a hand plane, and I’ll admit I’m making a mess of it in some places (from not following Tommy’s advice. Oops!).

Anyway, as I’m working on the dresser, I’m finding it’s made of some nice wood. I thought at first that the finish was that really thick plasticky finish that I’d basically have to paint over. I planned on using Valspar’s Pacific Pleasure (color #5009-10) for the body and keep the top nice and white. Something along the lines of this color:

Image from here.

Really gorgeous right?

But like I said, it’s a nice piece of furniture (Thomasville), and I’m finding it’s not hard to sand off the finish down to bare wood. So, then I thought, should I do something like this? And refinish and stain it something gorgeous like Clara’s changing table from Young House Love?

Thoughts, ideas, questions, comments? I’d love your advice! 

The sewing room is painted a neutral gray, and I’m generally trying to keep all work surfaces white. (Don’t want colors clashing or affecting your judgment while you’re working!)  I do have another desk that is blue and I plan on updating with Valspar’s Pacific Pleasure. 

So do I go with two blue and white dressers to keep things cohesive? Or bring in some nice, neutral wood tones? Opinions? Help!!

Paper-Covered Boxes for Fabric Storage

Last weekend, I spent a lot of time organizing and re-organizing and purging my massive stash of fabric.  And thus begins the great sewing room organization of 2013. :)

What I am doing is not nearly photo ready…I feel like I’m still getting a handle on how I want to really store all this fabric so it’s accessible…but I will share a small project that I did in the midst of this much bigger one!

I covered Bankers Boxes with wrapping paper.

Hahaha. Not the most exciting, but the results are cute and practical.

A couple of words on cardboard boxes for fabric storage: there are pros and cons of course. The cons are that cardboard isn’t as durable and waterproof as plastic bins. The pros are that these boxes are inexpensive, have nice handles, and are a really great size for being able to see and access what you have.  Bins that are too big can just become a mess.

So, that being said, I got these Bankers Boxes from Costco. They were $18.99 for 10 of them, so a pretty similar price to the ones I saw at Target, but they are much heavier duty. So much better than the other ones I’ve bought before. I am definitely going to Costco for more of these.

I found this cute wrapping paper at Old Time Pottery for $1.99.  It’s a little too cutesy for my normal decorating, but I thought it’s perfect for my sewing room where I can be as girly as I want.  And the colors are fantastic.

I took a few boxes out to the garage and covered a work surface with a trusty drop cloth.  I got out some spray adhesive that I got at a deep discount (at Bailey’s Discount Center!) and used a couple of spare pieces of cardboard as masking.

I roughly measured my boxes overall circumference and the height that I wanted to cover with paper. I was able to cut the length of the wrapping paper in half, which meant I got to cover 2 boxes for every cut of wrapping paper I made.

I lightly sprayed the box with adhesive, carefully wrapped the paper around it, and voila!

Exciting, right?

I sprayed a little adhesive on the edges of the paper that I needed to keep down, and I used some clear packing tape to reinforce the handles and a couple of spots on the bottom.

I even papered a couple of the lids!  (I left a couple white, ‘cause it was easier and I’m telling myself they coordinate.)

I papered some old boxes, too, with patterned Kraft paper from the dollar store.

As a final touch, I put some Contact paper chalkboard labels on and used my new favorite thing, my chalk pen, to label them.

I wish this could be on some gorgeously organized shelves to show you…oh well, one day.

As for what’s in the boxes?  I used to have my quilting/crafting cottons sorted by color into boxes like these, but when I started to do less quilting, I threw them all together in one big plastic bin.

But it became a mess.

So I re-sorted the fabric for easier access and visibility.

I’ll have to get more boxes and keep sorting, but this is a great start.

Have you decorated any plain, ugly things lately to turn them into something easy on the eyes?

Sewing Room Organization Part #1: Shelves

So this will be part 1 of a very long long process of really putting my sewing room together in a functional and organized way. Every sewer or crafter knows just how easily their craft room turns into a tornado zone! I know you all have paths through the messes like I do. :)

I’m starting my process with some shelving for the bins upon bins upon bins of fabric that I have. :) These shelves aren’t adorably styled or anything, but they are functional and the bins are labeled. That makes for a happy me. :)

I don’t have real before pictures of what this section used to look like, but here’s what most of the sewing room looks like (this isn’t even the worst corner really, believe it or not!).

To make the shelves, I started with some pre-made shelving uprights from Menards and 1”x12”x8’ pine boards, two per shelf.

I put the unit together temporarily (with just a few screws) outside for painting. Grandpa helped me with all this, so even though it was hot and muggy, it wasn’t too bad.

I painted the unit with some old oil-based paint we found in the basement (with a pretty cool label, and like many oil-based paints, it mixed up like new! I don’t know if it had ever been opened, really) in, you guessed it, Grandpa’s trusty Wagner Wide Shot Power Painter. What would I do without that thing?

I was very happy that just a nice, thick coat was all I needed. (Granted, I knew this shelf would be housing large plastic bins in the basement, so I wasn’t being too picky.)

Then, I somehow man-handled all the individual pieces into the basement by myself and installed it there. It’s held together mostly by itself (as the shelves screw into the uprights, they sturdy the whole unit up and keep it pretty plumb and level…though I helped it along of course!) but I did put a couple of concrete screws in it, too, to hold it to the wall and stop it from tipping. I think I used 1 or 2 concrete screws straight through the uprights and a concrete screw in an L bracket somewhere else. Just those 2 or 3 screws into the wall make a huge difference!

Once everything was secured together, I filled them up!

I have some more plans for shelves like this elsewhere, some plans for shelves on wheels, and I’ll hopefully come up with some other fabric and notions storage solutions along the way as well. I will keep you updated in this long process, which I’m sure will be very drawn out. :)

What have you been building lately?