I am a true lover of the minimalist feel while still staying functional and organized at the same time and I love that IKEA has gorgeous straight lines, is reasonably priced, and just gives my sewing room a finished and intentional look. 

IKEA has so many amazing products that help organize and beautify your spaces that its no wonder it has become such a popular store, and with all the fun hacks out there to get even more out of their products, the options are almost endless. 

So with my love of IKEA, we’re going on another adventure for sewing room ideas IKEA edition and going through all the ways I’ve incorporated Ikea products into my own sewing room to give you some ideas for how to incorporate IKEA into your own space, large or small.

How big should a sewing room be?

Any small amount of room you can dedicate to your sewing space is the perfect amount of space. 

I know, not exactly cut and dry, but if you don’t have any spare bedrooms or an office area in the house, a small nook in the dining room or the basement might be all you can afford to dedicate.

Any space is better than no space!

The more space you have available, the more flexibility you have in your design and organizational choices for the room, however you don’t need a large space to make it a beautiful space!

Regardless of how much room you have, the beauty of IKEA is that they have tons of product options that can make any space, big or small, functional and instagram worthy at the same time. 

So find whatever space you can, and don’t stress about the size. We are more worried about the functionality of it. All the IKEA sewing room ideas in the world won’t help if you don’t have a functional layout to work with.

How do you build a good sewing room

To build a good sewing/quilting room, you’ll need a incorporate a few different working areas:

• A place to cut fabric
• A place to sew
• A place to iron

And you’ll need to incorporate some key storage systems:

• Thread
• Fabric
• Patterns
• Notions
• Trash 

If you happen to have some extra space in your sewing area, there are a few great bonus things that are great optional features to include:

• Design wall for quilting
• Dress form for garments 
• Additional furniture for separated work spaces, more storage, or display

Even if you work in a smaller sewing area, you don’t necessarily need to write-off some of the more luxurious features of larger sewing rooms, you just need to get creative!

One really nice feature that a lot of sewers and quilters like to incorporate is a dropped sewing machine so the deck of the machine is level with the table surface. 

By dropping the sewing machine into the sewing table, you have less height differences that could potentially catch fabric and cause resistance as you sew. 

If you have to use that same surface as your cutting surface though, it makes it difficult to have a hole in the middle of the work space.

Instead of bypassing this feature, you can get creative and figure out a fun way to close the hole off when you need to use it as a cutting surface!

Start by making a list of the features you need, and the features you want, and have a brainstorming session to figure out how to get all those features included in the space you have available. 

No matter how big or small.

My Ikea Sewing Table

Karlby Countertop

Originally the spare bedroom that I commandeered was supposed to be strictly for my sewing and quilting, and then when COVID hit, we realized we needed a work from home office space. 

Two years later I’m still sharing this space with a desktop computer set up so my sewing surfaces have been reduced to only one of the working surfaces I originally set up. 

Fortunately because we custom made the desk, its got a little bit of elbow space on both sides so the only time I miss the second workspace is when I need to cut pieces and change over the stuff on the desk top from sewing to cutting.

If you are working in a smaller space and have the ability to run a custom table top to perfectly fit and optimize your area, I highly recommend taking the opportunity. 

All we did was take an IKEA Karlby kitchen countertop, cut it down to our exact size, and use standard mix and match IKEA desk legs to support it. 

The kitchen countertop can be cut to the perfect length to fit your space so you have corner to corner coverage of your workspace to avoid things constantly falling off the edges as you sew. 

You also aren’t bound to standard size tables that leave gaps between the table and the wall. Cutting to size lets you take advantage of all that space and fake a “built-in” look, reclaiming as much surface area as possible.

Interested in seeing more about how we IKEA hacked my desk? You can see the full tutorial on my custom IKEA sewing table here!

Ikea Sewing storage ideas

Alex Drawers

IKEA has TONS of different styles of legs for desks. They range from simple to fun designer styles which gives you tons of options to fit your space perfectly. 

If I had space in the room for additional furniture for storage, I would have opted for their absolutely beautiful trestle style desk legs, however I’m a girl with a space and storage problem, so I opted for the just-as-beautiful-but-way-more-practical ALEX drawers instead. 

I needed a space for fabric and thread storage and since the desk was going to be the only furniture in the room (other than an ironing board) ALEX was definitely the best option for my space. 

ALEX units have 5 drawers where the lower three are deeper than the top two. This gave me a perfect set up to store fabric on bolts in the deeper drawers while the shallower drawers fit a standard spool of thread perfectly with no wasted space. 

I had just enough room to put one ALEX unit on either side giving me 10 drawers total to keep everything under control and organized. 

If you want to see more about how I made my own mini bolts and thread organizers to fit these drawers perfectly, you can find all the details in the two posts below!

6 Best Fabric Storage Ideas to Get Organized in 2022
15+ Thread Storage Ideas

Moppe Tabletop Organizer

This one was a total impulse buy while walking through IKEA. (Does that happen to anyone else shopping there?)

The whole way home I was wondering if I spent money on it just to spend money and questioned if I was really going to use it.

After I got it home and filled it up, I immediately realized that impulse buy or not, this thing was definitely a game changer for my sewing room organizational strategies. 

The bulk of my crafting is definitely quilting based but on occasion I like to dabble in other crafts like hand lettering, cross stitch, or embroidery. 

In order to do those crafts they need different supplies than my typical quilting tools, but since I’m not doing them regularly it’s nice to have a separate place to store them away from my every day tools. 

These drawers are perfect for storing DMC threads, markers, or other smaller supplies perfect for those smaller crafts. I love that Moppe keeps them stored beautifully without cluttering the drawers I use on a regular basis for my quilting.

If you are tighter on space this is a fantastic IKEA investment. The storage capacity is pretty large for being a table top organizer without being heavy at all and has that classic streamlined IKEA look.

Ikea products for small sewing spaces

Nymane Light

When you are working in a tighter space, the less stuff you have on your work surface, the more functional it will be on a regular basis. 

Over the holidays I was gifted a lamp specifically for the sewing room (thanks mom!) and it’s been a HUGE game changer when I’m working at night. 

I’m only 30, and don’t even wear glasses, but when its night time and I’m turned away from my overhead light, it’s hard to see what I’m doing! 

Adding a lamp was like night and day, especially near my ironing board which is the furthest place from my not-super-efficient overhead lighting. 

But since smaller sewing spaces don’t need any more excuses for clutter on the workspaces, consider a task light like Nymane, a wall mounted but wall plug in light thats totally swivel-able.

You get all the light you need, without worrying about it getting in the way on the table as you sew. 

Rascog cart

If you are working in a smaller sewing space, a Rascog cart is an essential IKEA investment. 

Rascog is a three tier cart that can be rolled back and forth either into a closet for storage when you are not actively working on a project, or if you are traveling to different areas of the room completing different project stages. 

The Rascog cart can travel with you, or hide away the in-progress chaos that quilting and sewing often leaves. 

It can store tools, fabrics, supplies, or you can even turn the top of it into a small pressing mat to keep right next to you as you work. If you want to see how this is done you can check out this awesome tutorial from XXXX.

I like to use mine for long term WIPs so I can keep everything together and out of the way as I work on other projects around it. When I’m ready to tackle it again, I can just wheel out the Rascog cart and all of the pieces are still together and ready to be worked on. 

Sewing room organization ideas

Skadis Pegboard

When working in smaller spaces, making the most of every surface around you is a must. 

Skadis is the pegboard system by IKEA and its hands down one of my favorite IKEA investments so far. 

My go to quilting rulers, rotary cutter, pins, all get hung up on the board and off of my work surface. Keeping it on a pegboard keeps everything in arms reach without having to worry about knocking them off the table with large pieces of fabric or quilt sandwiches.

Skadis comes with different pegboard accessories, hooks, cups, and even little drawers that you can use to organize all of your go-to notions so they are always right in front of you instead of floating around in a drawer. 

And when these go to tools are so easily grabbed and put back, you’ll never lose them or end up with junk-drawer-type organization where tools get thrown in as you move between stages of projects. 

Variera

Variera is a simple open top storage container. 

I don’t know about you, but my scrap pile has become seriously out of control this year! 

While I don’t use these currently, a few Variera buckets are definitely on my shopping list for my next trip to IKEA. 

They come in a few different sizes so I can put up a nice shelf on my wall and separate all of my scraps by color so I always know what I have, or which scrap pile to attack next!

Using a bucket like this one, or even different clear style would go a long way to helping organize those scrap piles that always seem to end up in a rubbermaid, closet, or like mine, in a laundry hamper…

Final Thoughts

You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on a brand new sewing room to start incorporating IKEA products.

If you love the look but don’t know where to start, start small! 

Maybe you like Skadis but don’t want to commit to a full pegboard, that’s the beauty of it being modular! Start small, and add to it overtime, as you find yourself growing out of the size, go back and add more boards as you like! 

You do not need to have an entire room dedicated to sewing to take advantage of any of these IKEA products. 

And as a hint, IKEA even has planner tools you can use to 3d model your space and see how the items will look and fit in the space. 

It’s all about getting creative and taking it one step at a time to work towards a more functional space, whatever that means for you. 

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I’ll see you then!