When I showed you my new desk, I mentioned that I needed to make a curtain to hide some of my under-desk clutter. The nice thing about the Melltorp tables is that they have a slightly recessed space under the top, before the support bars, which created a perfect little space for a curtain. I had some old tension rods from a time when I had cafe curtains in the kitchen windows, and one of them was the right size for the 29″ Melltorp table.
This desk with a curtain underneath provided some inspiration:
I made a simple pocket curtain using the same fabric I used with some of my Expedit bins. I started with a piece of fabric that was 32″ long and about 40″ wide. This allowed me to hem the bottom and sides, and create about a 1.5″ pocket at the top for the tension rod. Although the table opening was a 27″ square, I made the fabric wider so that it wouldn’t hang completely flat.
It didn’t take long, and it looks so much better, don’t you think?
Back in the spring, I went on a quest for a new desk. It started at IKEA, was thwarted, wandered around lost, and ended back at IKEA. All I really wanted was basically a long table that would give me lots of room to spread out and do everything I want to do on a desk. To answer to my needs turned out to be 3 IKEA Melltorp tables.
I live far enough away from IKEA that driving to get these tables wasn’t really practical. Even with the outrageous cost of shipping, ordering them online was cheaper than picking them up myself. A word of caution to IKEA online shoppers: their shipping needs some serious work. The tables weren’t packaged well, and had to be replaced 2 times before I got all three undamaged. That said, IKEA’s customer service is better than their shipping department. And though it was frustrating waiting for replacements, I’m very happy with the final result. The tables are just what I had envisioned, and they feel sturdy. I’ve used them for a couple months now and I’m still happy.
The room still needs a new paint color and new curtains, but I do love my view. I’ve also got to do a little bit of cable management, and I’m planning to make a curtain to hide my under-desk storage on the right.
I love my IKEA Expedit shelf. I use it as a wall to divide my formal living room from my dining room, which serves as my office/sewing room. For awhile now, I’ve been searching for storage bins to help me organize the shelf and store items that I need to keep out of my little girl’s reach. Since this shelf is out in the open for all to see, the bins need to be pretty, too.
I looked at the IKEA options for bins first. Some of them just aren’t attractive at all. They do have some nice ones in natural materials, but I was afraid that the neutral colors of those baskets would just be too visually boring for a room with light brown walls and a birch colored Expedit. And $14-$16 per bin isn’t cheap for bins that aren’t even perfect.
There are a lot of generic fabric storage bins out there, but most of them just aren’t quite the right size for the Expedit. They tend to be just a few inches too small, which wastes valuable space and would not look quite as nice on the shelf as a bin made to fit. Target’s Itso bins are just the right size, but I wasn’t wild about the few color options available when I began my search.
I decided that the only way to get bins that were both the right size and pretty enough was to make them myself. I’m not the only one to come to this conclusion. There are lots of tutorials for making your own IKEA storage bins. I followed the tutorial for DIY Expedit Bins at Stitches and Seams. This is a great, easy to follow tutorial. I made a few small changes with my bins: instead of making a matching fabric handle, I used a length of cotton webbing for the handles. Instead of making a plastic pocket to hold a tag, I sewed on little metal frames I picked up from the scrapbooking aisle.
With a baby to work around, I spent several weeks from start to finish on five of these bins. Without a baby to distract you, I’m sure the project would go much faster, but it still isn’t a super quick project. I think the finished bins are worth the work. I love how they turned out. They are going to help me organize and baby proof my space so much.
In addition to a new desk, I’ve been sorely in need of a new cutting table. For years, I’ve had a cutting table that has sides that fold down and was made with the express purpose of being a cutting table. I bought it at the craft store. It has a matching cutting mat. And it did a good job, aside from being a little wobbly, until one day when it decided to disintegrate. Literally. It just fell to pieces.
I wanted to replace it with something that didn’t wobble, had lots of space, and was cheap. As with my quest for the perfect desk, I turned to Pinterest for cutting table inspiration. I found lots of versions of the same basic table: put a table top or hollow core door on top of some book cases or cubbies. So simple, so affordable.
I bought some semi-sturdy looking bookcases, instead of the super cheap ones recommended in many of the examples on Pinterest, as I’ve had a bad experience with a cheapy Walmart bookcase disintegrating on me in the past. (I’m noticing a theme here… maybe it’s me… or maybe I need to just stop buying bottom-of-the-line furniture.) For the table top, I bought the biggest unfinished hollow core door available. My cutting mat is 36″ tall and fits perfectly on the door. Also, a 36″ by 80″ door is HUGE. Just so you know. I knew this, intellectually, but it took on a different meaning when I got the door into my home. I will never lack for cutting surface.
I sanded, primed, painted, and sealed my door, so that my table would look like a nice, finished piece of furniture, instead of, you know, a door slapped on top of a couple of bookcases.
I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. I’ve got a big, sturdy table and some extra storage space underneath. I chose not to attach the door to the book cases, so I can disassemble the table and move it easily when I need to. I have a thin layer of grippy shelf liner on top of each of the book cases to eliminate any possible slippage.
If you are interested in seeing more ideas for a great craft room, follow my Pinterest board Craft Room Inspiration. It’s full of ideas for desks, cutting tables, file cabinets, bulletin boards, and everything else you need in a great craft room.
I went to IKEA, prepared to purchase the parts for a new desk. It seemed like I was thwarted at every step of the process. The store did not have the Vika Amon table tops I wanted in stock. They did have the Vika Alex drawer units, but they seemed more flimsy than I had expected or wanted. I tried to buy just legs, with a plan to simply attach them to a table top I made myself, only to learn the legs required a frame which was certainly too long to fit into my car. I left IKEA with no desk parts whatsoever and the knowledge that I needed a new desk plan.
I also left with a couple of new non-desk-related items for my room, including this fabulous turquoise Raskog cart:
Apparently, everyone else already knew about this cart as soon as IKEA released it into the world. But I had the fun of discovering it for myself in the store, because IKEA kindly displayed it right at the top of the stairs as you enter the showroom. I saw it and immediately informed my husband that it would be coming home with us. He thought I was joking. Ha.
As for the new desk plan, I revisited the idea of building a desk with countertop and kitchen cabinets. Kitchen cabinets, however, are not desk height. Buying desk height cabinets is a special process that takes time and extra money. Too frustrating. After too much angst-ridden searching, I stumbled upon the IKEA Melltorp table.
I didn’t look at this table when I went to IKEA because I was so focused on a Vika desk. But Apartment Therapy showed me what a perfect desk the Melltorp can be. And truly, all I really wanted all along was a table top on legs. This is perfect. I needed two of the longer tables and one short one to fill my wall. I ordered them online, as they wouldn’t fit in my car anyway, and they are supposed to arrive tomorrow. I’m pretty excited to set up my new desk. Next up, a new cutting table and plans to revamp my tired black file cabinet.
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.
IKEA Vika Alex units with a custom top at Sew. Click. Create.Sewing Desk at Olabelhe using Vika Alex units and a Vika Amon topDesk at Forty-Two Roads, made with Vika Alex unit and a countertop
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.
I’m working on getting the blog back into good shape. Somehow some malicious code snuck on to it (probably through some unsavory wordpress add-on), and I chose to delete everything to make sure it was well and truly gone. So please bear with me as I clean things up. (And get back to posting… my hiatus has been much too long!)
Seriously, yum. These samosas are delicious. They take a fairly significant time investment, but really aren’t that difficult to make. And they are so tasty, they are worth. every. minute.
I have a fixation I didn’t even know about. It started with this teapot.
Seriously, how excellent is this? It’s an elephant teapot. I didn’t really need it. Even when I drink tea, I almost never use a teapot. But when I saw it in the store, I loved it.
I was responsible. I didn’t buy it. But I kept thinking about it. Which of course meant I needed to go back and buy it. So I did.
Then, on my quest for a vintage snail planter I once saw on Etsy (what, I didn’t tell you about my quest? I’ll save that for another post.), Ebay told me I needed this:
That, my friends, is a gravy frog. And I needed it. Again, my cooking doesn’t involve a lot of gravy, or any separately served sauces, really. But how could I possibly go on without a froggy gravy boat? So I bought it.
When I went to take a picture of the frog to show my excellent Ebay find, I remembered the elephant teapot. And that is how I figured out I have some sort of weird animal serveware fixation. I don’t seek it out. These things find me. What comes after an elephant teapot and a gravy frog?
I can’t even imagine.
Hello! I’m Shannon. I write about sewing and crafting, and selling handmade. I also run a little online shop. {Read more…}
