Hi there. It's Karen Brown of Just Get It Done Quilts.
So do you need a new ironing board?
Or perhaps you need storage space for your sewing room?
Well I've got a great solution to combine both of them together.
An ironing board with storage.
So stick with me and I'll show you how to do.
Now I've been in my condo for about two years
I built myself a sewing room and on one side of the sewing room
I built a murphy bed for my #3 child for when he came home from university.
Well after university he came home and stayed.
So now all my sewing stuff is in my bedroom.
It's a mess and my ironing board is taking up too much space
So let me show you my solution.
An ironing board with storage.
if you google wire shelving you'll be absolutely amazed
at how many different versions there are out there
Wayfair, Lowe's, Home Depot and Amazon all have a great selection
I ended up going with Amazon Prime.
So for me, I knew I wanted four shelves
I wanted it on casters
and I wanted it to be at least 35 inches high
and I didn't want it too deep.
I'm just going to have it in my room
and I have a walk-in closet that I can roll it into when I want
But if you're wanting to tuck it away in a cupboard when not in use
or move it from room to room get those measurements down now
so you can buy the right size
So after an exhaustive search I settled on this brand and model
mostly because it was available in this dark brown
The box arrived pretty quickly
There were a lot of little pieces so
Iaid them all out on the floor accounting for all of them.
The casters came as a separate kit but they were dead easy to put on
I'm putting these little collars on the bars
which the racks will seat into
to stay in place
Other than needing space, it's just as easy as it looks
and those casters have brakes on them
so once you have it upright you can lock it in place
so decide where your next shelf is going to go
the bars actually have grooves in them
so it's easy to put the collars on evenly
once I get the third shelf on, then I put the upright bars on
I could have done this first but I didn't have a lot of space
so it's a little bit easier to do it now
I set up my ironing board just to confirm the height that I wanted my fourth shelf to be at
and voila the first part is done
So the next step is getting wood for your ironing board top.
You can use MDF, you can use particle board you can use plywood
I'm using plywood because I'm combining it with another project
whereI need wood that I can stain.
If you know your measurements ahead of time,
Home Depot will cut it to your exact size saving you a ton of work
My board is a little long because it's an off cut of that other project I'm doing
The next step is cutting holes in the wood
Where the tubes go through,
I simply mark it with a pencil around the outer edge
Next you attach a hole-saw bit to your drill.
It was pretty easy getting through the first layer on the plywood
but the middle area was pretty gummy
I had to stop and wipe out the sawdust before I reached the bottom layer.
And then you get to do it three more times
I trimmed off the ends with this compact circular saw but my husband missed the footage
And then we put it through the tubes
and sit it on top
The next step is we need to trim these top poles
so that they're just below the top of the plywood
We'll use this pipe & tube cutter
First I removed the top rack and the wood platform
I thought this step was going to be quite difficult and require some brute strength
but I was surprised at how easy it was
You rotate the cutter around the bar and when it becomes easy
you tighten up the handle
just a touch,
so that it can still move smoothly and
you just keep rotating it
and rotating it until the bar comes off
What I forgot to photograph was there's these rubber stoppers at the ends of the poles
I had to take them off the pieces that I removed
and put them on the new ends
Put the top rock back on
Make sure it's level
Add the wood
The top edge of the wood should be just above the top of the tube
So that big bag of batting that you have stuck in your cupboard
Now's the time you get to bring it out
You need to find a piece of batting that will cover the whole surface
You don't want to piece it here as you want a flat surface for your ironing board
So the fabric that we use to cover the ironing board
is a specialized fabric
You can buy it from Fabric.com, Joann or Fabricland
It is a hundred percent cotton with an aluminized coating
I found it in the home decor section
For the top of the ironing board I'm using a scrap piece of
Blue Correspondence by Tim Holtz
So I put all three layers together
and took it for a test drive with my iron
but I found it was just a little bit too hard
so I tried it again with two layers of batting and it was just right
In December I received these 9" Tailor's shears from LDH scissors
This seemed like a perfect time to take them for a test drive
So I laid out my batting and then placed the board on top of it
I moved it to the side just so that it had enough just to wrap around
so I could staplel it down
Then I trimmed the other side to match
I just love the sound of sharp scissors
Then I placed the aluminized cotton down
and then placed the batting and the ironing board on top of that
I guess I could have done it all at once but I found it was creasing and it was hard to handle
so I chose to do them as separate layers
Now with the top fabric
I wanted to add two strips of velcro to either side of the table
So I just needed to find those points on the top
I just used a frixion pen
making several marks along the top of each edge
which I will align the velcro strip to
So now I've moved to the workshop
I'm spraying my board with some basting spray
just to tack down my batting
and make sure that there's no wrinkles
And then I put another layer of basting spray down as I put down the next layer batting
I had a little difficulty making this far side flat where the fold was
so I just got out my new shears and I trimmed it
And it worked fine
Another layer spray
and the aluminized cotton goes on
Now we flip it all over
and get out our pneumatic stapler
So we put one staple in the middle of both of the long sides
and then we put one staple in the middle of the two short sides
Then making sure the fabric is nice and tight
you stapled down all of one side
Then you flip it around and staple all downthe other side
We're not doing the corners right at the moment
We're going to leave them until the end
and then do the two short sides
To do the corners we want that fabric standing up tight and crisp
And first we need to cut out all that excess batting from the corner
Another great test for those new shears
as we need to have sharpness
right down to their points to get at these corners
I tried to make a nice elegant upholstery corner here
but because of the holes that we had to take leave open
it became quite fiddly
There was a combination of trimming and folding and stapling.
The result is something less than elegant
but it works.
I attached the top fabric as a totally separate piece
I figured at some point in the future that the top might be stained
and I might want to replace it
So as its own piece I can just rip it off on its own and install a new one
I'm stapling the two endsides first because I have strips of velcro
on the fabric that I want to have lined up with the board
And as I'm stapling it I'm turning the raw edge under
So I don't have to deal with any threads
And then I go down the other two sides
We're in the homestretch now here
And then we just have to fuss with these corners once more
It's a little bit easier with this because the fabric is much lighter and thinner
but it's still fussy
but it's over in a minute.
Not too shabby
I'm pretty chuffed
I'm pretty darn proud.
I love how it helps tidy my space up
And having it on wheels makes it so convenient to move it around
into the light or near my sewing area
so I mentioned a couple of times
that I was putting velcro on the side of the cotton covering
Let me show you what I've attached to the velcro
This pincushion was a gift and I thought it would be perfect here
to catch all those pins that come off while you're ironing.
This is a little catch-all I just made from some leftover clothesline rope
And by attaching a small little button of velcro I finally have a place for this sew stick
And lastly I added a couple of velcro wraps just to keep my iron cords
in place when not in use
I love how this helps tidy up my space
I still have a lot more to do
but this is a great start
and it's only January
so what do you think?
I guess I have to do a video now on ironing
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Take care and I'll see you next time