I have a great storage place for fabrics of all kinds. My husband works for a large county school system. And they are always renovating an old school, or building a new school. In this process they are always throwing away old school cabinets which for the most part is in great shape. Within the last two years he has brought home 3 large cabinets. Two upright ones, one of which he gave to my son-in-law for tool storage, one for his self for tool storage. The last and best one was approximately 6 feet long, 5 feet high, had 3 shelves inside, and had sliding doors on it. It was solidly built, in great shape, and the teacher had asked the janitors to get rid of it because she did not want it any more. So these 3 cabinets ended up in
the maintenance area to be disposed of and my husband who is head of recycleing for the county schools, was able to recycle the items to out house and my daughters house. All the cabinets and now enjoying a new life and are we enjoying them. So look around your schools, you might be able to recycle something there too, if you ask nicely.

What a great idea never even thought of that before, wouldn't work for me cause I have no room in the 5th wheel but I'll keep in mind when we finally get a place, if gas prices keep going up will be sooner than later
Lynda

Margaret,

That is really great that your husband thought to do that. I have seen old desks and such being prepared for a type of
garage/auction that our schools have on old things they are needing to replace. They don't have these sales very often, but I will try to attend the next one to see if there might be something that I can use for my sewing room!

This is a great idea...I am using some antique dressers for storage...it works well for me...I am also using the zip lick sotrage bags for scraps...They are easy to use and I can see what I have in them. They also lay flat in a drawer...

Margaret, that's a fantastic suggestion...and all us bad girls need MORE storage for our precious fabric! My uncle works for the school board in my county and he's recycled lots of treasures...he even salvaged a large cutting mat a teacher was throwing away. Thanks for the idea.

Margaret.. you have great resources at your fingertips I wish we could be so lucky.. I however had to buy my shelves the are the rubbermaid ones with 5 shelves and the work great... what I did to improvise for a design wall due to the shelves taken up my wall space is used 2 sided tape and cut the batting to the size of the door and then post the batting on the doors using the 2sided tape as the adhesive.. it is easy to remove if you don't want the design wall anymore.. I am also still able to open the doors to get to my fabric..

Margaret maybe there is enough room in between your sliding doors that you can also add a design wall!!

Deb in Toronto

I have a couple of built in cupboards in what had been the sewing room (actually an enclosed porch) which lost it's heat when the radiator pipes burst 2 years ago. Thank goodness my dh will never get around to repairing it! One set is actually a closet, so I hung shoe and sweater holders in it to hold fat quarts and yardage. The other is a series of shelving, the upper of which I use for fabric, and the lower for the embarrassingly large collection of quilting magazines I have (I bought several lots on ebay of my faves.) I also store my current projects in a portion of our kitchen cupboard, which is causing problems! But I work downstairs, and I don't want to have to run up and down just to get started.

I keep current UFOs in sweater bags and the very large ziplocks (I like the sweater bags best, I got both to try them out) in a buffet drawer that I share with my toddler for his clothes storage.

My unsatisfactory part is storing the sewing machines in a closet, because the toddler and my older boys, who have autism, will fiddle with them and endanger self and machine. But as far as I can figure, it can't be helped.

I realize writing this, I have an embarrassingly large amount of storage! Yay for me! I'll keep expanding into the rest of my families territory, lol.

Naomi

good idea about the design wall with the two sided tape. I used this tape to put up a cork message board....wasn't sure if it would be strong enough to hold the board, but it did. So I know it would be good for the cotton batting in doing a design wall.... and you could make it any size

naomi.....

When you stated you had an embarassingly large collection of quilting mags, I had to laugh. I really can relate to that....I have two large (ceiling to floor) bookcases filled with books, patterns and mags....and there is some I have in boxes that I was not able to place in the bookcases I really must go through these and get rid of some of them.....however, I seem to suffer from the dreaded 'side track' disease. and end up re-reading and planning for new projects. Oh dear, such is life