apartment - "before" photos

A week ago my Dad came by and fixed so many things around the house! I love you, Dad, and thank you!

Here's the window shutter/blind that was closed shut for weeks in the "bedroom", that my Dad fixed (he even found an abandoned wasps nest inside there) - so now I can get all the sunlight I need:

"bedroom"

And here are the IKEA shelves that he fixed for me after I broke the part that stabilizes them when trying to move the shelves from one room to another:

IKEA shelves - fixed by Dad - in the bedroom, for my fabric stash

See how I covered the shelves in green IKEA wrapping paper that I've had lying around for years? I ran out and don't have enough for the rest of the shelves, though, but that's OK. A few days ago I decided to wash all of my fabric (!) so after they all hung out to dry I folded them up nicely and put them in their new home - the shelves.

Today I will be organizing and cleaning the house. I know it sounds odd but my "living room" has been my sewing room and bedroom for the summer, because it is the only room with A/C:

"living room"

I plan on leaving the sewing machines where they are for the time being, because it's more pleasant to sew with A/C still. But I will move the bed back to the bedroom because for the night I use just a fan anyway. Fall and Winter, we welcome you!

my sewing machine, serger, and cover stitch machine

Here's a picture of the abandoned "sewing room". I need to decide what to throw out from all these old pattern sheets (see that big messy pile on the floor?), and put them in a proper place. Also, I need to organize the stuff that's on the desk.

"sewing room"

I was over at IKEA yesterday and that gave me a simple idea to just hang up a big bag and put all the pattern paper in it - that way it's not taking up any shelf space or falling everywhere. Here's the IKEA product that gave me the idea, but I'm just going to improvise using something else.

IKEA - SKOGHALL

I still haven't arranged my sewing magazines very well, but this will do for now:

sewing magazines - I prefer to store the pattern sheets and the magazines separately.
That way when I'm leafing through magazines, they are not as heavy

BTW I canceled my Burda Style magazine subscription a while ago, and I check the magazine out in the bookstore to see if the current issue is worth buying. Usually, for me, it isn't. I prefer buying McCall's / Vogue / Butterick individual patterns, when they go on sale. I found that Burda Magazine pretty much repeats itself over the years and doesn't have the styles I want.

My beloved pressing ham and I don't know the name of this other useful pressing tool:

pressing area - in the bedroom

I don't think I needed this fancy steam iron. A very simple one would have sufficed! And it wouldn't automatically turn itself off after 8 minutes!

I want to move to a smaller newer place after I get a job. For now I'm just doing the minimum in this apartment - no shelf hanging or repainting or anything fancier than that. This will be just my modest re-organization, nothing too fancy...


Photos after my cleanup session soon!!

I would love to hear any organization tips and suggestions!