The Creme de la Cutting Table, Finished At Last!

My Finished Cutting Table: 97" x 42" top, 38 3/4" height

My cutting table is finally finished!  Well, mostly, anyway -- I still haven't gotten around to ordering the other two cabinet knobs for those red drawers, and Bernie hasn't finished the little shelf that goes on top of the red drawer base unit, either. 

The red drawers are a Kraftmaid kitchen cabinet that we ordered from Home Depot in white and then painted red ourselves.  All of the white units were built by my husband from scratch out of MDF, sized to perfectly fit the 17" x 21" double-depth (7" deep) wire baskets from ClosetMaid.  The surface is a John Boos 1 1/2" thick solid maple butcher block counter top, unfinished so it "grips" my cutting mat and won't let it slide around.  We ordered that from Butcher Block Co. online.

New Base in Place, Old Dark Brown Table Top

In the photo above, the new cutting table base is in place but the countertop hadn't been delivered yet so we just had the old top from my previous temporary cutting table in place.  See how much smaller it was?  The surface of my new cutting table is 42" x 97", and the height of the table is 38 3/4".  I'm about 5'8" tall and this puts the cutting surface about 4 or 5 inches below my elbow when I'm standing -- perfect for rotary cutting as well as for cutting with scissors.  I need lots of space in this area, because I don't just cut on my cutting table -- I pile all the fabrics and supplies I'm using around the perimeter.  I also discovered that, now that I have that fabulous 200 watt Ivanhoe Sky Chief pendant fixture from Barn Light Electric, I really like sitting at the cutting table for things like hand hemming, cutting and tracing applique templates, etc., so we incorporated an open space in the center for a stool. 

Another change from my previous cutting table designs is that this one is up against the wall rather than floating and accessible from all sides.  It won't work as well for basting quilts, but I only have to do that a couple of times each year and I think I can come up with a temporary setup for that when the need arises.  Meanwhile, I gained back a lot of floor space by putting the table against the wall.

I really love the built-in storage in this table.  I keep my scissors, rotary cutters, cutting templates, and tailor's ham in the red drawers.  I have plenty of room for my fabric stash in those breathable wire bins, and I have ClosetMaid metal base units with more wire bins at the back of the table, on both sides.  No wasted space!  I really love how this turned out.  The lighter color of the maple surface (compared to the dark brown finish on the old tabletop I had before) reflects light without any glare whatsoever, and it will last forever. 

As you can see, a lot of thought went into planning this table.  The size, location, lighting, materials and finishes were selected with great deliberation and care.  A lot of thought was NOT given to the weight of a 97" x 2" solid maple countertop, or to how we would get this behemoth up the stairs to the studio once it arrived.  According to the Bill of Lading from the commercial freight carrier, this countertop weighs 364 lbs!  Yet somehow, Bernie and I managed to get it up the stairs, around the corner to the studio, and then heaved up onto the base without damaging the butcher block, the walls, or either of our backs.  I think this must be one of those phenomenon where women acquire a burst of superhuman strength in an emergency situation, like when a car must be lifted from a child, or when a long-awaited countertop must be lifted onto the cutting table base. 

So, next?  Well, the little shelf surface for the unfinished top of the red base cabinet needs to be made, painted, and installed.  That will be a great place to store the extension bed for my big, bad Bernina sewing machine.  I'd like to find a more comfortable stool.  Also, once I have emptied the shelving unit on the adjacent wall and moved it to the other side of the room, we can install some white pegboard on the walls adjacent to the cutting table for storage of my acrylic rulers and machine embroidery hoops.  No wasted space!  I also have another piece of furniture in this room that I want to repaint and repurpose for storage.  But meanwhile, I've been working on the design for a new, improved sewing cabinet with back-to-back work stations.  Stay tuned...

How High is My Cutting Table? And How Big is TOO Big?

Now that I've bored you all with my dry-as-dust discussion of ergonomic sewing table heights (click here if you missed that one and can't bear to go on without it), we're moving on to the second-most-important work station in a sewing studio: The Cutting Table.  Dum, dum dum dum.....

New Cutting Table In-Progress

This is my fourth custom-built cutting table, believe it or not.  It consists of a kitchen drawer base cabinet that I bought and painted red for the sewing room in our last house, along with two ClosetMaid modified wire drawer units on either side.  I saw these wire mesh drawer bins in Carolyn Woods' book, Organizing Solutions for Every Quilter, which I reviewed here yesterday.  These are the bins that Alex Anderson uses to organize her own fabric stash, and I bought two of the 40" tall, 17" wide 5 Drawer Kit units online and then had Bernie cut them down for me. 

The surface of my cutting table, for now, is an old 67" x 35 1/2" Pottery Barn kitchen table top that was previously repurposed as a kiddie arts and crafts table in our play room. Honestly, I'm torn about the cutting table size, which is why I want to try this setup out for awhile and see if I can live with it.  My former cutting table (below) was a whopping 54" x 72".  That table was sized large enough to accommodate 54" wide bolts of drapery fabric and was a nice size for quilt basting, but it ate up a lot of space in the room since it was positioned as an island, accessible from all four sides.


Previous Cutting Table, 54" x 72", 35 1/2" height

The old cutting table was impossibly heavy and was balanced on four little wooden book cases with dead space at the corners and beneath the center of the table where all sorts of stuff would get piled and forgotten.   I rarely ever sew any drapery stuff anymore, but I liked knowing that I could if I wanted to.  I also liked having a table roomy enough that I could be rotary cutting on one end and sorting/staging my project on the other side of the table. 

However, one of my major goals from this rework/remodel is to free up enough space for a small seating area.  It's nice having a Room of One's Own, but who wants to quilt in solitary confinement, after all?  So we're testing out a much smaller (and much more NORMAL) sized cutting table, and I've positioned it up against the wall beneath the window to free up even more space.  If I decide I can live with this size, then Bernie will morph this into something sturdier with additional storage space, perhaps on casters with a drop-down leaf in the back so I can pull it out and get additional workspace every once in a blue moon when I need that larger size.

OSHA Cutting Table Dude

The height of my new work-in-progress cutting table is currently 37 5/8".  Of course my attempt to find a consensus about the "ergonomically correct" cutting table was a big flop -- recommendations ranged anywhere from 34" to 40" for me.  Everyone says to stand and bend your arms at about a 90 degree angle, and have someone measure from your elbow to the floor.  One book said that my cutting table should come up to the bottom of my elbow, but most sources, including the U.S. Department of Labor's OSHA guidelines, said that the table should be at elbow height or just a few inches below that, and a couple sources suggested slightly different ideal heights for cutting tables depending on whether you'll be cutting with shears or with a rotary cutter (elbow height if you cut primarily with scissors or shears, and a few inches below that if you primarily use rotary cutting tools).

I knew the table had to go a little higher than the 35 1/2" I had before, because I had that lovely red base kitchen drawer cabinet that I wanted to use and it didn't fit beneath my old table.  So I decided to go up about 2" to a 38" table height -- remember that I'm 5'8" tall, my elbow height is 40" from the floor, and your mileage may vary!  The idea is that I will be able to cut longer and more comfortably (sans back pain) if I don't have to bend down and stoop constantly at the cutting table. 

PSST!!  I'd Love to Quilt for YOU!

By the way, if you or any of your quilty friends has a quilt top or two that needs quilting, I'd be delighted to quilt for you!  My turnaround for edge-to-edge quilting is currently running about 2 weeks, and you can click here to find out how to book your quilt with me.