Sharon's La Passacaglia Millefiori Quilt, Laundry Room Makeover + My Workshop Project Pivot

Good morning and Happy Thursday, coming to you from the Severe Weather Epicenter of Hurricane Helene!  Okay, so I’m not exactly in the epicenter of the storm…  But this is our first hurricane since moving to Florida and it’s very nerve-wracking for me!  I bought a bunch of bottled water, stocked up on nonperishables, and now I’m biting my nails, listening to howling winds outside and getting nervous every time the power blips the lights off for a couple of seconds.  We’re nowhere near where storm surges or flooding or houses getting swept into the ocean is expected, but I still worry about losing power (Air conditioning — it’s still really hot here!  And refrigeration for our food!  And being able to cook!  And omigosh, why didn’t I think of asking my husband to hook my espresso machine up to an old treadle machine or something?).  EEK!!!  But the power and the air conditioning is on right now, my son is baking brownies and they smell amazing, my dog is snoring peacefully, and my husband is watching some football show on the television.   All is well in this moment and we’ll deal with anything tomorrow brings when it gets here.  So instead of watching the weather channel, I’ve decided to share a beautiful La Passacaglia Millefiori quilt with you that I quilted for my client Sharon last December, one of the last quilts before disassembling my long arm for the move to Florida.  

Sharon used the pattern from Willyne Hammerstein's Millefiori Quilts book available on Amazon here (this post contains affiliate links).  La Passacaglia and the other Millefiori quilts in the book have been very popular, and I found both acrylic templates for traditional hand piecing and foundation papers for English paper piecing this quilt on both Amazon and on Etsy.  

Sharon's 70 x 81 La Passacaglia Millefiori Quilt

What really intrigued me about Sharon's version of La Passacaglia is her restrained palette of neutrals and how that gives the quilt a completely different look from the brightly multicolored quilts many others have made with this pattern.  Her fabrics remind me of sandy beaches strewn with pale peach and cream seashells and sand dollars and I thought it was spectacular.  I loved the quilt top immediately, but Sharon thought her finished quilt top was a little bland for her taste, not as exciting as she'd envisioned it.  That's why I always ask clients what they like best about their quilt and whether there's anything they wish they had done differently or could change.  Knowing how Sharon felt about her quilt, I suggested an elaborate clamshell quilting design to inject textural drama into her quilt.  I used Quilter's Dream Wool batting for several reasons: it's very lightweight so it prevents a heavily pieced and weighty quilt top like La Passacaglia from turning into a super heavy quilt, the additional loft helps ease in the fullness that can be common with hand pieced quilts, and the loft of wool creates maximal dimension and texture.  I quilted it with matte, thin So Fine thread in color Pearl to ensure the quilting stitches would blend into her fabrics without upstaging the intricate piecing.  

Detail of Faceted Clams E2E in So Fine Thread, Color Pearl

By the way, fairly heavy quilting like this is not just for looks -- there's a functional benefit.  Hand pieced seams aren't always as strong as machine pieced seams, but heavy quilting secures and reinforces the patchwork seams, protecting them from stress damage throughout the life of the quilt.  Whenever someone grabs or tugs at a quilt with heavy quilting, they are pulling on all three layers of the quilt together (pieced top, batting and backing).  When someone grabs or tugs at a minimally quilted or hand tied quilt, they often grab hold of just the quilt top layer, causing those fabrics to wear and tear and the patchwork seams to pop prematurely.  Heavy quilting doesn't need to result in a stiff quilt as long as the batting is soft and supple and you use a thin, pliable thread for the quilting.

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...

Last Book Review and Studio Remodeling Update: Creating Your Perfect Quilting Space by Lois L. Hallock

Creating Your Perfect Quilting Space: Sewing Room Makeovers for Any Space and Any Budget, by Lois L. Hallock, is a good reference for anyone who is reorganizing, remodeling, or creating a brand new quilting space.  Hallock offers sound ergonomic advice as well as planning worksheets for taking inventory of your fabric, tools and equipment.  She also includes budget planning worksheets and advice on scheduling and executing your studio so the project goes as smoothly as possible.  The book contains a number of real quilting studio makeovers, including before and after full-color photographs and floor plans with dimensions, and the rooms featured range quite a bit in terms of size and budget, so most readers will be able to find useful ideas and layouts for their own available space.  I like that, along with explaining how to do a scale floor plan of your space to audition possible furniture placement, Hallock also explains how to do an elevation drawing of each wall, which you definitely need to do if you'll be hiring contractors.

I found this book most useful in conjunction with the two other books I reviewed here earlier this week: Carolyn Woods' Organizing Solutions for Every Quilter: An Illustrated Guide to the Space of Your Dreams has much more creative and original storage and organization solutions for fabric and quilting tools, and Lynette Ranney Black's Dream Sewing Spaces: Design and Organization for Spaces Large and Small contains more thorough, up-to-date information on lighting, many creative ideas for maximizing even the smallest work spaces, and -- most important -- discusses sewing room design in a general way, with special sections at the end of the book addressing the unique requirements of sewing spaces for professional dressmakers, quilters, and drapery workrooms.  This was crucial for me because I need my studio to be a flexible space that works well for all kinds of sewing, not just for quilting.  However, quilters who only want to purchase one book about setting up a quilting studio would not go wrong in choosing this one.



My Studio Today, Not Finished but Ready for Sewing!

So, what's next in my own studio remodeling project?  A Test Drive!Bernie cut a larger hole in the top of my existing custom sewing cabinet to accommodate the larger size of my new sewbaby, the Bernina 750QE. I can't believe it's been almost a month since I unwrapped that machine, and I haven't been able to sew a single stitch with it yet! Now that the electrical and painting mess are complete and I have a temporary cutting table in place, I am planning to get in there today and sew something -- anything! -- to see how the new setup and new machine work for me.

My Existing Custom Sewing Cabinet, Adapted to Fit New Machine, with New Electric Lift Installed



In case you're curious, Bernie built my existing sewing cabinet (see above), using an 18" wide kitchen drawer base cabinet that we ordered from The Home Depot and painted red and a Bernie-built 18" wide cubby unit on the left.  The knee hole opening is 32" wide, which allows me to sit centered on the needle and easily accommodates the movement of the machine on the lift (it goes up for free arm sewing, and all the way down to completely recess the machine when I'm not using it).  I have 22" of surface to the right of my machine, where I keep thread snips, pin cushions, and enormous cups of coffee, and I have 26 1/2" of surface to the left of my machine.  The current counter top is some kind of particle board or something that I'm planning to change (I want something lighter in color for better light reflection, with a more comfortable bullnose edge in the front where my forearms rest when I'm quilting, and with a matte but slippery finish to facilitate free-motion quilting).  I do, however, like the size of my cabinet top -- it's 28 1/2" x 73". 

I either want to enlarge the depth of this cabinet or have Bernie build another one just like it that can butt up to the back side of this one.  My serger will go there, and will completely recess beneath the cabinet so it's not in the way when I'm not using it.  I just don't want to go too big, though -- still trying to preserve room for a seating area in the new studio!  I found a birch-veneered conference table top from IKEA that could be a possibility for my cutting table AND an enlarged, two-machine sewing cabinet:

IKEA GALANT Conference Table Top, 76 3/4" x 43 1/4"

I wish they had dimensions on their web site showing where the cutout for the cords is in relation to the edges of the table top.  A quilter on the 8 Series yahoo group posted that she bought this table top and was able to plug the cord hole with a piece of wood.  I like the light color of the birch veneer and it's a nice size, with no annoying seams.  It's only $299, and it's even cheaper if you order the white one.  I haven't shown it to Bernie yet, though, and he's not a fan of IKEA.  He'll probably want to cut down an old-growth cherry tree, mill the lumber himself, and finish it by hand with some elaborate stain recipe out of Fine Woodworking magazine that requires fifteen hundred coats, sanding, and waxing with butterfly wings or something.  We all have our hobbies, don't we?  ;-)

Time to fire up my new sewbaby and see if big girls really do have more fun!  Vroom, vroom...

Book Review: Dream Sewing Spaces by Lynette Ranney Black, 2nd Ed.

If you only buy one book about designing and organizing your sewing workspace, THIS is the one you should get.  Dream Sewing Spaces: Design and Organization for Spaces Large and Small, by Lynette Ranney Black, is the most thorough, authoratative guide I've come across.  The author, who has a background in kitchen and bath design and remodeling AND sews herself (she's even written a book on serging home dec projects) walks you through absolutely everything you need to think about when you plan a new or improved sewing space.  I do want to point out that I'm reviewing the second edition of this book, published in 2010, not the original 1996 edition. 

She gives you a handy Inventory of Needs checklist, a form for recording your body measurements for ergonomic planning purposes, and a nice overview of how to do a scale floorplan so you can work out the most efficient layout for your space.  Black explains how to set up efficient U-shape and L-shape work stations to maximize efficiency.  She covers how to do a full lighting plan for your space, including options for ambient, task, and accent lighting, and explains how wall and surface color choices affect how much light is reflected from surfaces -- and that wall color actually tints the light that bounces off the wall, so that you won't be able to view colors with as much accuracy in a room with pistachio green or hot pink walls, for instance.  Some of my favorite specific storage ideas from this book were creating 3" deep recessed shelves between drywall studs (on interior walls) for serger thread cones and incorporating pull-out "bread board" style landing areas to the right and left of your sewing station.  I'll be incorporating both of those into my own studio redesign. 

 

This book includes lots and lots of big, full-color photos of very different sewing rooms for inspiration, and includes a floor plan -- with dimensions -- for each one.  In the back of the book, the author even addresses the specific needs of specialty sewers: quilters, professional dressmakers, and drapery workrooms.  Whether you're blessed with a large room dedicated to your sewing or trying to make the best use of a corner or closet, this book will help you to use your space wisely and efficiently.

Book Review: Organizing Solutions for Every Quilter

Professional organizer Carolyn Woods immersed herself in the quilting world to write Organizing Solutions for Every Quilter: An Illustrated Guide to the Space of Your Dreams, visiting the sewing spaces of quilters near her home in Arizona as well as consulting with quilting celebrities like Alex Anderson, Libby Lehman, Diana McClun, and Nancy Arseneault.  I found quite a few storage ideas in this book that I really like, including the ClosetMade wire mesh drawer bins (shown on the cover) that Alex Anderson uses to organize her fabric stash.  I also loved the idea of repurposed library card catalogs used for thread storage, and a number of really good solutions for storing embroidery hoops, acrylic rulers and the bazillion tools and notions we all have piled up in our work spaces.  However, I can only give this book 2 out of 5 stars because the ergonomics section of this book is so misinformed.  

I have consulted two other sewing studio design books, several sewing web sites, and the U.S. Department of Labor's OSHA recommendations for ergonomically correct sewing and cutting stations. Woods' recommendations are so far out of whack with everyone else that, if her advice was followed by hard-core quilting enthusiasts, it would CAUSE back, neck, shoulder and wrist pain! 

OSHA Guidelines for Ergonomic Sewing Posture

Woods has degrees in political economy and business administration and runs a professional organizing business -- she does not have any credentials as an expert in ergonomics, which is fine, except that she does not appear to have consulted with any ergonomics or medical experts, either.  Woods' suggests a sewing surface height between 5 1/2-7" HIGHER than your elbow when you are seated with your arms bent at right angles -- this is in direct contradiction with current OSHA guidelines; OSHA and every other reputable source I consulted says that having to reach up like this to sew is stressful to your wrists, shoulders, and can cause muskeloskeletal disorders.   

If the author didn't want to research ergonomics for sewing, she should have left that part out of the book and focused on storage and organization, her strongest suits.  Misinformation is so much worse than no information at all.

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.

Custom Sewing Cabinet with Corian Countertop?

Margaret Sindelar's Sewing Room, designed by Pamela Porter

I saw this gorgeous sewing room makeover on the Better Homes & Gardens web site that designer Pamela Porter did for her seamstress client, Margaret Sindelar.  Besides the beautiful built-in kitchen cabinetry she used for storage, do you notice anything?  Margaret has a solid surface countertop on her custom sewing cabinet!  Eureka!

Solid surface countertops like Dupont's Corian would make an ideal sewing cabinet surface for so many reasons.  Corian isn't shiny, so no glare from your sewing machine's light or task lighting.  Pins shouldn't damage the surface, but if you ever did get a scratch it would buff right out.  Corian is slippery, which would be great for free-motion quilting.  Best of all, you can get Corian in any color you want, custom fabricated all in one piece to the shape and dimensions you specify, with no seams or sharp corners for your fabric to catch on.  I especially like how Corian is smooth all the way around the edge and on the underside of the countertop overhang, unlike laminate countertops, which have a sharp points at the top and bottom of the corners. 

I stopped by my local Lowe's Home Improvement Center and picked up some Corian samples.  Witch Hazel was one of my favorites, because it's light enough to reflect a lot of light without being a stark white that would create glare and eye strain.  It has just a bit of beige streaks, giving it a stone-like appearance that would be gorgeous in my sewing palace:

DuPont's Corian in Witch Hazel

Beauty plus function -- what's not to love?  I was all excited about this idea... until I calculated the COST of a Corian sewing cabinet surface.  The sewing cabinet configuration I'm leaning towards would have room for my main sewing and embroidery machine on one side and my serger on the opposite side, each with machine lifts so they could recess completely into the cabinet when not in use.  I planned a cabinet that extends forward on the left side of my main machine, to give additional support for large quilts and also to provide a place for a small cutting mat or secondary ironing station, as needed for different types of projects.  It's a BIG cabinet, with lots of workspace on top and lots of storage beneath (basically a counter height kitchen island) -- and it turns out that this beast of a sewing cabinet I've designed would require around 33 SF of Corian.  Even the cheapest, plainest, brightest white Corian is around $39/SF, and 33 SF x $39 = around $1,300 before we even add in sales tax.  The lovely Witch Hazel Corian that I selected costs almost twice that amount.  And that's just for the sewing cabinet -- I had been thinking of how nice it would be to use the same Corian for the big layout and cutting table as well.  Ugh!  This project was supposed to be an exercise in RESTRAINT and thriftiness!  I hate budgets!

Back to the drawing board...

Meanwhile, I've filled two giant leaf bags full of junk from my sewing room, and am about halfway finished emptying the room.  Bernie has been cutting lots of holes in the drywall and I think he managed to install two of the can lights today while I was battling with a son who INSISTS that his science fair paper does not need an abstract.  Time to open a bottle of wine and saunter upstairs for a look-see, don't you think?

My Sewing Studio Has GPS: Giant Purse Syndrome!

According to The Daily Mail, the average woman's purse now weighs a whopping 5.2 pounds, and it's causing quite the increase in related back and shoulder injuries.  Why would women want to schlep around such heavy bags?  It's partly a fasion-driven phenomenon, but I think we naturally trend towards larger and larger bags over time.  You start out with a small handbag in your teens, which you pack full of makeup and a hairbrush, maybe a travel-sized can of hairspray.  Then you move up to a medium-sized bag as a young adult, so you can fit your cell phone and your planner, your keys and maybe even a novel.  Once kids come along and you get used to having a monster diaper bag to fit bottles, toys, iPads/iPods/kindles, Cheerios, water bottle etc., you get hooked on the capacity of the big bag and you pack it so full the seams are nearly splitting and tell yourself "If I got a bag just a little bigger than this one, I could fit EVERYTHING I need..."  The reality is that, the bigger the bag, the more crap you will fill it with, the less often you will clean it out, and the more difficult it will be to FIND what you're looking for when you need something!

 

This is my Sewing Studio when we first moved in, before we'd finished unpacking

Which brings me to the current disaster of my sewing studio.  When we bought this house with a 21'6" x 15'6" bonus room to completely dedicate to my sewing, I thought I had died and gone to heaven and I was sure I would never again feel cramped for space to create.  The previous homeowners even had a full-size pool table in this room.  My sewing room has a high vaulted ceiling, is flooded with natural daylight from the beautiful windows, and is located at the end of a narrow hallway on the second floor of our home, so no one traipses through my space on the way to some other part of the house, and I can leave in-progress projects out while I'm working on them.  Perfect, right?

 

This is what my sewing studio looked like a week before Christmas!

Welcome to my Chaos...

Unfortunately, just like the stuff you "need" in your purse expands to fill your handbag, the stuff I "need" in my sewing room has expanded to fill my room to the point where I don't even have room to work anymore.  My cutting table is overflowing with several in-progress projects, new rulers and other tools that I haven't found homes for, and new fabric not yet pre-washed and added to my stash.  My bulletin boards are overflowing with project ideas and inspiration ripped from various magazines.  My sewing cabinet and several folding utility tables surrounding it are similarly loaded down, and all of my storage pieces are overflowing.  It's time for a change, don't you think?  Since January is all about resolutions, renewal and reorganization, I'm planning a complete overhaul of my sewing studio for the New Year!

 

Step One: The Painful Purge! 

I've already started the first step, going through everything to figure out what to keep, what to throw away, and what to donate or sell.  I have accumulated quite an assortment of high-end drapery fabric and trim remnants from my interior design business, for instance, things that I couldn't bear to toss in the trash because they were so expensive, but they are mostly in pieces that are less than one yard, that don't coordinate with anything else in my own home, and they are all wrapped around tall cardboard fabric tubes so they take up a lot of real estate.  What am I REALLY going to do with these?  I remember a professional organizer once telling me that you have to consider the cost of storing items that you aren't using -- is that item worth giving up space that you could be using for something else?  Well, right now all those bolts of fancy drapery remnants are costing me the ability to run a vacuum over the carpet, preventing me from seeing or accessing everything that is buried behind them, making me feel claustrophobic and overwhelmed, and making it impossible to even consider bringing a comfortable chair or two into my room so my husband and kids could hang out with me while I'm sewing.  It's time for them to go!

 

Step Two: Redesign Furniture & New Floorplan

Next, I'm going to redesign my existing custom sewing cabinet, cutting table, and storage furniture to improve their function, ergonomics, and use of space. 

Santa Baby did not bring me a new sewing machine for Christmas -- but Bernie and the boys did!  My new Bernina 750QE is a bit heavier and has a larger footprint than my previous Artista 200E/730E machine, so it won't fit into the opening of my existing custom-built sewing cabinet without modifications anyway. This is a great time to make changes to the size, shape, and storage options of the sewing cabinet as well.  I'm toying with the idea of designing a larger table with two lifts on opposite sides, one for the main sewbaby and the other for the serger, which currently sits on a table top full time, taking up valuable surface space.

I'll do a new floorplan in my design software to come up with the best layout for the room (borrowing some basic principles of kitchen and bath design), and once I know where the main furniture and workstations are going, I can design a new lighting plan for the room.  Although this space has great natural light during the day, it's currently lit by a measly four bulbs on a ceiling fan that was mounted way too high to begin with and a few inadequate lamps and task lights scattered around the room.  The whole room is on a single electrical circuit as well, and every time I plug my iron in, the lights dim.  I keep my computerized sewing machines plugged into a UPS at all times to prevent damage from power fluctuations, but the truth of the matter is that the existing wiring is inadequate for the way I'm using this room. 

 

Step Three: Structural Upgrades, Electrical & Lighting

"Largo Chandelier" from Currey & Co.

So I'm planning to add two additional electrical circuits, one just for the iron, one for the lighting, and one for everything else.  I'm going to replace the ugly ceiling fan, which I can't turn on when I'm sewing anyway because it blows things all over the place, and maybe replace it with a fun chandelier (I have this Currey & Co. Largo Chandelier in my garage that used to be in my dining room, and I'm already thinking about repainting it in Oil Rubbed Bronze and changing out the amber crystal drops for clear ones).  Then we'll have to add additional can or track lighting around the perimeter of the room to provide even lighting without shadows -- maybe the new LED cans, which run much cooler than traditional bulbs and provide truer color rendering.  I love the red paint on my sewing cabinet, but I think the wall color and surfaces need to stay light, bright and neutral so I can focus on the colors of my project fabrics.

Step Four: Rebuild Sewing Furniture & Built-In Storage


Koala DualMate Plus IV: Pricey, Very Little Storage, and Inadequate Support for Large Quilts

The goal here will be to maximize efficiency and space.  I've looked at commercial sewing furniture from Koala, Horn, and other big name manufacturers, but they all seem to sacrifice storage capacity for the ability to fold up when not in use, and the prices are outrageous for what they are made of.  I'd like to design one large sewing cabinet for my sewing machine and serger to share, with the ability for both machines to completely lower and hide within the cabinet when not in use and no wasted storage space beneath the cabinet.  The cutting table needs to be large enough for basting a large quilt or cutting 54" wide home dec fabrics when needed, but perhaps it can have drop down leafs so that it doesn't eat up so much floor space all the time.  Storage solutions for fabric, thread and notions needs to be sized to fit contents.  Who knows -- hopefully I can even fit a small seating area and a wall-mounted flat screen TV in the redesigned room, to entice my husband to hang out with me more often while I'm sewing?  Right now he sits on the floor with his iPad and both of our hundred-pound Rottweiler puppies pile onto his lap. 

I've ordered a couple of books on sewing room design and organization tips for quilters from Amazon, and I've also been scouring Pinterest and the blogosphere, looking for suggestions and best practices from others.  If you know of any resources I may have overlooked, please share them with me in the comments!  I'm hoping that, if we can start this project in January, we can wrap it up by the end of March so I can get back to sewing again.  Not that I don't plan to commandeer the dining room as a sewing space while my room transformation is in progress...  ;-) 

So, that's what I'm planning for the new year, once the trees and decorations are all taken down and packed away.  Wish me luck!

Mission Accomplished -- Mostly, Anyway

Lars's bedroom after 4+ hours of blood, sweat and tears

This transformation took me and Bernie over four miserable hours yesterday, working together while Lars freaked out alongside us.  My Lars is a little pack rat who wants to save absolutely everything, and he's very emotionally attached to all of his stuff so that it feels like he's personally under assault when we go in there and start going through everything.  However, it had gotten so bad that it was overwhelming to him and bringing order out of that chaos was way beyond his abilities, so it was time for some tough love.  I confiscated and disposed of a hoarde of hundreds of candy wrappers, amazed and grateful that they had not yet brought an infestation of pests to my home, while Lars wailed that they were a "valuable collection worth a lot of money."  We filled trash can after trash can with things like junk mail, empty boxes and toy packaging, scratch paper from last year's homework assignments, business card "souvenirs" from doctor's offices and dry cleaners, and even sticks (but it's a special stick!), and Lars desperately tried to pull things out of the trash cans as fast as we could put them in.  He screamed for us to get out of his room, stop touching his things, that we were ruining everything, we're idiots, he hates us, etc.  I knew I was in for this when we started, which is why I let his bedroom get so bad in the first place. 

I just kept repeating that "the way it was" wasn't working, and we needed to change his room a little if he wanted to keep his toys in there.  We ended up moving his bed about 6" to the left, just enough so I could fit the dark brown shelving unit between the bed and the desk.  The shelving unit was a temporary fix introduced over the summer and had been shoved in a corner where it didn't fit well, and it was formerly piled with junk on every shelf.  The two fabric covered storage boxes on the bottom have padded seat lids and used to be in the toy room, but they fit perfectly on the bottom shelf and they are filled with Transformers.  This shelving unit is the first thing I see from the doorway to Lars's room, so I wanted it to be neat and orderly.  The dogs can also reach the bottom two shelves, so I didn't put anything there that they could get into.

The oversize books on the next shelf were formerly housed in a wall-mounted book rack with the covers facing out that didn't take up a lot of physical space in the room, but that created a lot of visual clutter.  We got that book rack from Pottery Barn Kids when Lars was in preschool and it was great for all of the picture books we were reading at that time, but it was time for that piece to come out of the room.  I finally convinced Lars to put his Hogwarts Castle Lego set on the next shelf up (instead of on his bathroom floor, where he preferred to keep it), which was a major victory.  Loose Lego bricks and K'Nex pieces were separated from other toys and mixed together in a 15-gallon red plastic storage bin with rope handles (Lars enjoys combining Legos with K'Nex when he builds his own structures), and that bin was placed inside Lars's closet, away from curious puppy rabbits.  All of his various trading cards were collected in one of the storage baskets in one of his bed cubbies, every surface was dusted and vacuumed, and the bookshelves were reorganized so that they contain books only and not books plus everything else. 

Jubilation!  Lars loves me again!

The craziest thing about all of this is that, when it was time for bed time stories last night, Lars told me, "It's like I have a whole new room!  It's so much bigger!  I LIKE my new room!!"  I'm not completely finished with Lars's room yet.  I didn't go through the storage cupboards on either side of his bed, and he still has a motley mixture of trash and treasures piled on shelves in his closet that need attention.  I have some additional oil paintings and framed artwork that I need to arrange on the wall above the furniture, and I need to come up with that Lego tarp ASAP so that all my hard work isn't destroyed the first time he sits down to play.  Then there's Anders' bedroom to contend with, which isn't nearly as bad as Lars's was (and won't be as draining emotionally to deal with, because Anders won't be screaming at me the whole time).  But we started with the hardest part first, so all the work that lies ahead will be a cake walk by comparison.

The Lego Store, Concord, NC

Lastly, lest you admire me too heartily, let me tell you where I'm taking my children this afternoon.  We're going to the Lego store at the Concord Mills Mall, so that Lars can spend the Lego gift certificate he got from my parents and they can both spend some allowance money.  They each also have several little gift-with-purchase boxes from my holiday shopping that they get to fill with loose Lego bricks of their choosing, free of charge.  I know; I must be stark, raving mad to bring MORE Legos into my home after what we went through yesterday -- but earning allowance money is only an incentive if they are allowed to spend it sometimes, and this once-a-month shopping excursion to spend allowance money has been on the calendar for weeks.  Someday soon they will be teenagers, and this Lego Era will just be a memory, like Thomas the Train, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and super hero dress-up costumes.  Legos are just thorns on the rose of childhood, and I wouldn't trade this time away for the world.

Mission Impossible: Finding a Functional, Attractive Solution for the Lego Landfill

The Lego Landfill Formerly Known as Lars's Bedroom

It doesn't look as bad in these pictures as it does in real life.  There must be at least ten thousand Lego blocks strewn across the floors, over every horizontal surface, piled in closets, and mixed in with other toys in the storage bins and clothing drawers of Lars's and Anders' bedrooms.   The desks that were intended for homework and drawing are completely unusable, and I have to navigate a Lego minefield just to change the bed sheets or to collect dirty laundry from their hampers. 

I used to have a "no toys in the bedrooms" rule, but as the boys started building more complex Lego sets they wanted to keep completed structures on display in their rooms.  This turned out to be a slippery slope, and before we knew it the chaos of the third floor toy room had spread down the stairs and taken over the boys' bedrooms as well.  If the toy room was too messy to play in, they'd just cart more toys down to their bedrooms and play there instead.  Finally, about six months ago, Bernie and I made good on our long-standing threat to invade the third floor play room and reclaim it as an exercise room.   We weeded out and donated toys the boys had outgrown and no longer played with, but several oversize bins of Legos, Transformers, and other toys were carried down to the boys' bedrooms to be dealt with "later."

The Culprits at Play in Anders' Room, Trying to Look Innocent

Well folks, "later" is happening this weekend!  School is closed for a Teacher Workday today, so we have three days to reorganize these rooms and devise a solution that is acceptable to all parties: functional for the little Brick Master wannabes, attractive, safe, and easy to maintain.  Our dogs can't even go in Lars's room anymore -- there's nowhere for them to lay down, and Otto brazenly pilfers Legos and Pokémon cards from Lars's room right in front of everyone.  Anders' room looks a little better at the moment, but that's because everything was randomly stashed in drawers and bins.  As soon as they start playing in there, they have to dump everything out in order to find the right bricks for the projects they want to build.

Don't get me wrong -- I have nothing against Legos.  The 1000+ piece sets are challenging and time consuming to build, and both boys also enjoy creating their own structures, incorporating concepts they've learned from their Lego design books and from experience building sets.  The problem is that my kids like to have lots of room to work, so a desk or even a special Lego play table is too small for a workspace.  They like to dump the Legos on the floor so they can see all their pieces and sort through them as they are building.  And they like to build complex structures over a period of days or weeks, so there are always several partially completed structures in progress in the middle of the floor, surrounded by hundreds of loose Lego bricks and parts.  I've scoured the Internet for Lego solutions and, although I found some great ideas for younger children or for those with a much smaller number of Legos, I haven't seen anything that can accommodate the way my kids play with Legos.  I also found complex Lego organization systems devised by adult Lego afficionados, where bricks are sorted by both shape and color in a myriad of little drawers, but even if I summoned up the energy to sort through my kids' Legos to that degree there is no way my kids would be able to maintain that kind of system over time.  These boys are still struggling to organize their homework assignments in their school planners, after all.  What we really need is a Hogwarts-style Room of Requirement addition to the house where we can throw all the toys to be hidden from sight until they are needed again:

Room of Requirement set from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, photo courtesy of Architectural Digest

Okay, back to the real world!  Here's my plan:  First we need to adjust furniture placement, especially Lars's room, to maximize open floor space in the center of each room.  Next, it's time to go through the drawers, shelving units, and existing bins again to cull broken and outgrown toys, and group like items together to assess how much of everything they have -- books, Legos, other toys, trading cards, etc.  Then I can devise appropriate storage for each category.  For Legos, I'm going to try to implement a fabric play tarp with handles on the corners that the boys will need to spread out on the floor at the beginning of a building session.  That way, when they are finished for the day, they can move their structure-in-progress up to a shelf, gather up the tarp from the corners, and dump the loose Lego bricks back into a big storage bin in a matter of minutes. 

Wish me luck!