Kimonomomo is an online Etsy shop and we also sell at several quilt shows throughout the year, mostly in California. For years my kids endured having all that inventory in the living room as we endured tiny apartments and cramped living conditions for the first few years of my business. When I moved in with Thomas in 2011 he wasn’t really prepared for the craziness that is my creative and entrepreneurial life, but he has adapted. In 2013 he built shelving in a spare bedroom to store my growing inventory of quilt fabrics, but by late last year we could see that I had already outgrown that space and my work was spilling into every other room in the house.

Imagine my shock when he offered to convert the living room into my new studio space.

A man of his word,Thomas removed the worn-out carpet, painted the walls and ceiling, and installed even more new shelves. All of this was done on his spring vacation time and on weekends. He’s a grade school teacher, but also spent 10+ years working for a large home improvement store so he’s handy with tools and lumber.

The last time he built me shelves they were built from scratch, but this time we went with IKEA shelving and I think it looks pretty good. Nothing fancy, just functional, modular, and light.

The above photos are from Sunday night. I started filling the new shelves Monday morning.

So many of these bolts had been sitting in boxes for the past month! Many of them haven’t been photographed for my Etsy shop yet.

The living room is full of natural light most of the day, whereas the old studio space (in a spare bedroom) was quite dark.

I’m excited about the new space! We’d crammed so much inventory into the old studio space that there wasn’t enough room for creativity. Now I feel like I can breathe deep again.