The Cutting Table
Chapter 1
One day a girl decided to open an online fabric store. Her husband, being ever so supportive, brought home an old desk top that was being thrown out at his work and rigged up a cutting table using some 2x4s he had lying around (with fabric to wrap around it and hide the 2x4s). And it worked. No one really saw it anyway since it was an online shop….until the girl decided to do a quilt and fabric show. It just wasn’t sturdy enough to stand up to the wear and tear put on a poor cutting table during a show where hundreds of people came through each day. Plus it wasn’t all that pretty.
Chapter 2
The girl had seen and loved this table on her friend’s blog. She even had a friend here in Tucson that had done the same thing. So the girl set off to convince the husband that this was what she needed. The girl can be very persuasive (one might even say a little melodramatic at times 
) and after modifying a few details in the plan, the husband signed off and a trip to Ikea was planned.
Chapter 3
One change that needed to be made was for the whole unit to be longer. The cutting table needed to be able to easily cut yards and yards of fabric and still have room at one end to set the bolt. So two Expedit Bookcases and one Expedit Shlefing Unit were purchased.
The unit, if it was to be taken to various markets for fabric shows, needed to be a little easier to transport. And so wheels were also purchased at Ikea. At Home Depot, the husband purchased two big sheets of plywood and a couple of smaller pieces of wood to build a frame for the top. The bookcases were all hooked together and then attached to the plywood. (It is very sturdy!) The wheels were then attached to the bottom. (Yay! It can easily move around or be locked in place!) The new cutting table worked so well at the Quilt and Fabric shows that the girl participated in!
For the top, the husband built a frame and then attached a piece of plywood to it. Originally it sat up a few inches (as you can see in the photo above) but now that the fabric store is closed, it just sits on top of the shelves, which makes it a perfect height for the girl to use her rotary cutter. It is just barely bigger than the bottom shelving units and is covered in fabric and then has a really large megamat on it, making it a great surface for cutting. :-) The fabric is just stapled around the wood which means that it can be changed as desired – which is handy because the girl, in addition to be melodramatic, can also be rather capricious and likes to be able to change things up.
The girl and her cutting table lived happily ever after.
The End
Tune back in next week for the story of the girl and her sewing tables as well as the girl and her storage units!
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Not sure if I love the cutting table or the way the story is told better! Either way, that is a great cutting table for you to now enjoy!
Thanks, Christine! I am enjoying it now for personal use – although I have yet to actually complete a project this year.
Mostly I just like to go in the room and sit. HA!
My cutting table is the floor.
I really like yours!
Oh I have used the floor plenty of time!
What would really annoy Luke was when I’d have a project out cluttering the table when it was time to cut orders! Ha!
‘Tis beautiful – I love it! Great storage underneathe for a show OR for home. How many sewing machines do you have anyway?? Maybe a story called “A Girl and Her Sewing Machines” is in order.
Yeah…about that…..
I have 3 machines and 2 sergers plus I sold 2 machines in November (so I had 5!) I think it’d be awesome to fill up all 8 holes with machines…Luke doesn’t agree.
HOW AWESOME IS THAT TABLE ????????
my husband is just so lucky we doesn’t have any space for it at all…. otherwise I would drop everything just now to drive to ikea.
greetings,
tina
Ha! He doesn’t know how narrowly he escaped.
Thanks, Tina!
I LOVE your cutting table! If only I had enough space in my sewing room for one like it…..
Thanks, Cindy!
I LOVE IT !! Our nearest Ikea is in the Chicago area ; about 2 hrs away and I HAVE NEVER BEEN THERE !! I drool over their catalog ! Luke did a wonderful job . I am ‘testing’ our Oak Express huge computer desk bought about 11 or so years ago ; and if it doesn ‘t work out for me , it is out of here ! and then my DH can build me THIS !!!
He’ll be so excited ( not !) .
I enjoy your story telling skills !! I can’t wait to see and read about your sewing tables and storage units . I need some ideas . I have 3 huge shelves from Lowes , however this girl did not keep them organized and they are a mess . My fabric stash ( almost a small store ) is a mess and prevents me from ooohing and ahhhhing over my Kate Spain and other beauties when I walk in the room !!
I got my fabric and patterns and rick rack today . I LOVE IT ALL !! thanks !!
HA! Well Ikea is like 90 miles away – so for us it’s a planned trip for sure – not just spur of the moment. but we do end up making the little trek a couple times a year. As far as organizing, I’m not exactly an expert (or rather I’m horrible at the keeping up part once the initial plan as been made.) It is fun though when it’s all freshly organized to be able to oooo and ahhh over everything. I really just like to sit in the sewing room. Just sit. And stare.
I love this cutting table that you/your husband made! It makes me wish that I had more room so that I could make one for myself!
Thanks! It has turned out to be such a great table for us!
hope the husband is also living happily ever after, too. haha. Thanks for sharing and i will forward to this girl’s husband, as he mentioned a couple weeks ago, “instead of using your great aunt Omah’s dining room table, why dont I fix up a cutting table where it has storage underneath?”
This girl had to sit down, she was so stunned. (actually I am quite happy with Omah’s table, she wanted it to stay in the family, and I was happy to oblige) But this girl would be happy with cutting height table too.
The husband is living happily ever after too.
Thanks for thinking of him! lol That is awesome that your husband even suggested it! Having cutting table height is really really really nice – your back will thank you. 
I am going to request (if it really happens) a drop leaf on one end attached with a piano hinge, to make a pressing area. maybe.
that is an awesome idea!!! any progress on this front?
Love it Mel! I’ve already shown my husband and requested him to build me one. What was the overall cost of the project if you don’t mind me asking?
The project was around $250. BUT there are a few things that could save you a bit of $- first of all if you wanted to save $40ish you could leave off the little bookcase at the end….PLUS if you don’t need/want it to move around the wheels aren’t necessary. (Although I like having it up off the ground so my toes can go under. Does that make me weird?) Also your height works to your advantage here (yay, right?) because your wouldn’t need it raised up for a comfortable cutting height. The extra top we built on top is another optional feature that could be modified or left off. If you just got the 2 larger bookcases I think you’d be at about $150ish.
We had seen pictures of yours and also of Patty’s so when it came time to purchase a cutting table for the shop, we did the exact thing. LOVE it!! Makes for an absolutely perfect cutting table. Thank you so much for the inspiration!!
some day I will see your shop in real life!
I know what my next Ikea purchase is going to be LOL… another 2×4 bookcase. Not sure if I have the room for the end cabinet though! Are those the wheels from Ikea too? I definitely want it a good height for cutting (oh, my poor back!) and love how the machines fit in the boxes! Now to rearrange the room…
yes, the wheels are also from ikea! Depending on your height, you might need to go higher than the wheels make it – with a top on top of them. I’m 5’4″ ish an it’s this is a great height for me. no more bending over to cut!
I’m 5’4″ too… so I guess I’ll be getting hubby into the act of cutting something to give it more height too! Busy reorganizing to make way for the second bookcase… wheels, need to look them up in the catalog. I am working on getting my back healthy and the one thing my physical therapist taught me is how to sit at the sewing machine so I don’t re-aggravate my back problem. The second on the list was to raise my cutting table, so this all works into ‘the plan’ perfectly!
happy sewing!
We are in the process of building a cutting table like yours, thanks to your inspiration. Hubs has a question, how did you attach all of your bookcases together? Are they just sitting on the plywood, or are they attached to each other? My sewing room is strewn all over the house, and I really need to get it put back together so I can sew!! Thanks so much for the help and inspiration!
Luke used L Brackets to hold them together and they are also attached to the plywood underneath (from underneath into the solid wood frame around the book shelf edges)
I had a 80x30x1 hollow core door attached to the top of a dresser which has 7 large drawers (awesome storage). Notice I used past and present tense in the same sentence. Last night I decided to place a wall hanging over the table and misjudged the distance between the front of the table and the wall. I also forgot the that the table was a hollow core door. My knee landed in it and i now have a nice sized crack in my cutting surface! The handy man who attached the door to the dresser will now bring me a piece of 80x30x3/4 plywood sometime next week (he’s swamped and I have no DH). I’m going to add padding and a fabric cover to the plywood and place it right on top of the door. The only remaining question is whether he attaches the plywood to the door for stability or I used velcro for a temporary (and portable) hold.
LOVE your cutting table. I spend all my time setting-up and cleaning-up my sewing stuff on either the kitchen table or the dining room table. Finally my husband has agreed to let me take over one of the sparerooms in the basement (YEAH!!!!). It isn’t the biggest room. Could you please send me the finished dimensions of the cutting table. We don’t have an Ikea close but could maybe go in the spring and take a look at the shelves (it’s an eight hour round trip in good weather). Thanks for the inspiration!
Thank you! The way that I made it (with the extra unit on the end) the cabinets are 75×31. I did make my top a bit bigger, so my whole table measures about 80×36. I’ll try to answer more questions if you have them!
You are an absolute genius. I love it and must have one of my own!
Thanks! I still love it so much!
It’s such a great part of my sewing room. Also the perfect height for me. If you do make one, I’d love to see!
LOVE your table! Showed hubby and he agreed it would be very nice for me to have something similar! Our Ikea is just around the corner…thanks for the inspiration! Now, just to find the space for such a table…
Last week my friends introduced me to Pinterest and someone had pinned your wonderful cutting table. I loved the table and wanted to use the space under my cutting tables so made the trek to Ikea and bought two small bookshelves and two large. We have finished putting the first unit together. I understand about the plywood on the bottom but my husband is asking how your husband attached the bookshelves to the bottom piece of plywood. I assumed screws but my husband is very specific. How did you husband. I’ll send you a picture once we are finished.
Thanks so much for sharing.
Thanks, Kay! I will have to ask him because I’m not sure.
Hi Melanie
Love your cutting table. I thought that you may like this (been sewing professionally for over twenty years).
My cutting table; which I am proud to say “I made it myself”, is 2 x Ikea Norden Occassional tables with drawers with 1 sheet of MDF (medium density fibreboard) 4ft x 8ft (1220 mm x 2440 mm) on top of it and wooden spacers to widen the table. The MDF is then secured to the top of the Norden and then covered in wadding/lining. The wadding and lining is then staplegunned to the table. This works great as it also doubles as a large ironing board.
http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/40245741/