I am in the early stages of making some improvements to my sewing and craft room. I have been gathering ideas and planning what would work best in my space on my budget. I need to accomplish a few things: 1) I need more usable work space, and 2) I need to baby-proof this place, fast. My little one isn’t mobile yet, but she will be soon. Since my space is in what was intended to be a dining room, it doesn’t have any doors I can just close to keep the baby out, and that probably wouldn’t be practical anyway.
In terms of work space, right now I have an average sized computer desk, a separate sewing cabinet, and a printer sitting on a filing cabinet next to my desk. I need more surface space to accommodate a second, larger printer, my serger, and to give enough room to comfortably use my wacom tablet, which has been sadly neglected because I don’t have enough space to work with it. Also, my cutting table has disintegrated, so I need a new one of those.
Let’s start with a new desk. I want something long and simple. I can’t just build myself a desk, because I lack tools and skill, so I need to find something I can buy. I have seen a lot of good ideas using Vika components from IKEA.
Yes, I seem to be a bit fixed on the Vika Alex drawer unit. I love the way it looks, although it’s definitely not going to help with baby proofing at all. I’ll just have to come up with a plan to store all the dangerous stuff up high. Back to the desk:
My plan is a long desk that fills an entire wall. My wall is about 132″, so two 59″ table tops from IKEA should just about fill it and still fit in my car for the trip home. I’ll support the table tops with Vika Alex drawer units on each end and legs in the middle. Another drawer unit in the middle would be nice, but I have a vent I don’t want to cover.
Getting IKEA parts means making a special trip to Chicago and having enough space to transport said parts. It also means counting on IKEA to have the parts I need in stock on the day I’m there. Lately, the table tops I need have been out of stock more than in. Lots of ifs. I’ll be going there soon, and we’ll see if I come home with a desk or not. If not, I may still get the Alex drawer units and figure out some other top once I’m home.
