Studio floor plan

Melly commented that my studio space looks huge. Well, as I said in my May 4 post, I really am thankful for all the space I have to spread out now! I thought it might be interesting to show you a floor plan of where I work now, and where I used to work.

For seventeen years I did computer drafting for an engineer, so I already had these drawings on my computer. I know, I’m weird. In 2005 we moved into our present home. Before we moved, I actually measured the house and drafted it out so I could plan what renovations needed to be done and where furniture would go. Many years before that, I had drafted out the home we were living in. There’s something I love about floor plans. I think it dates back to when I was a kid and I used to read my mom’s Good Housekeeping magazine. I always loved those little floor plan drawings and the photographs of home renovations.

Anyway, I am thrilled that right now we have our family room and my studio in part of a converted garage. The only thing lacking is natural light, but I’ve installed loads of lighting to compensate. I also added five storage cabinets to hold all my supplies for dyeing, painting, stamping, sewing, crafts, etc. My current studio space is about 8 feet by 14 feet (112 square feet), but I admit that I overflow into the rest of the room, too, as well as the living room and dining room where there are windows.

Now, to put all this in perspective, in our previous home my studio space was the 12′-6″ by 12′-3″ dining room (12′-6″ by 11′ if you don’t count the bay window). While that space technically had more square footage, somehow we also squeezed in a full size dining room table with six chairs. Granted, no one was allowed to eat at the table if I was working on a quilt. It always seemed much more crowded. Before that, I was using one small desk in the basement!

I think what I like better about my current space is that I have so much more storage and everything is light, bright, and white, which probably helps to compensate for not having a window.