I’ve been thinking about the studio a lot since I moved in. What would my ideal space be? What did I know I wanted, from previous experience, and what did I know to avoid? I knew that my computer would be on the desk it’s always been on – the teacher’s desk my parents got me as a kid, that’s been hauled with me across states and apartments and now into this house. Also, my art drawers had to stay – they hold an unexpectedly large quantity of useful stuff, and though they’re a fairly hideous fake wood veneer, they’re really useful. And I wanted a magnetic wall. This is kind of a weird thing, but I’d randomly done a magnetic wall in my first apartment, painted with incredibly bright stripes, and I loved being able to stick up whatever random sketch I’d just done as inspiration, or change out wallet-sized photos of nephews without any complications.

Now that the sliding door was in, it was time to move forward. Also, with my newfound free time, I figured I could go ahead and paint, since paint is relatively cheap. I had to figure out what I was going to do about the wall the door was in – it obviously needed to be repainted, but I don’t have the wall color that the entire house is painted. So I needed to match the beige somehow, and figure out if the whole room was going to be beige (other than the closet, of course), or if I was going to make another wall brightly colored as well. I kept thinking about lime green, but I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. I have really great associations with lime green – my favorite classes at Creative Circus were in the green room, and my favorite prof at ASC always makes me think of lime green for some reason – it’s just perfectly her color. Continue reading →

One of the first things I knew I wanted to do in this house was add a sliding door to the studio. For one thing, there’s no access to the backyard without going out the kitchen door and walking around the side of the house, and I think that’s weird. Also, I really wanted my studio to have lots and lots of natural light, and replacing a window with a door would help with that (along with the skylight, of course). It had to wait until a lot of necessary work happened first- the roof, piers in the basement, and A/C replacement, and there are only so many contractor-type people I can handle at a time. But in November, the time had finally come. I got some quotes, picked a door, and was ready for it to happen. So of course the door got back-ordered. For eight weeks. Finally, in the middle of December, the door came in, and a crew of guys came and knocked a big hole in the side of my house… and put a door into it! They also moved an outlet that was in the space the door took up, and added an outdoor outlet, which will be really useful when I build a patio out there and want electricity.

Here’s the studio before the sliding door:

after skylight, before sliding door

And here it is after, during our freak snowstorm (sorry it’s not at the same angle, but you get the idea):

As you can see, it needed its trim and the wall around it painted, but that is another post.

So it’s been a while since I posted, because life happened, and the holidays, and anyway. This is the tale of weekend number 9. On Friday morning I looked at my closet, and decided that it was time to shorten the curtains I’m using as doors for it (I’ll tell you in a moment of my newly-discovered and intense hatred of sliding doors). This meant I needed to set up my sewing machine. As aforementioned in this blog, the kitchen table is covered in stuff and therefore unusable. My art desk, assembled because of the kitchen table situation, is a high desk, so you can’t use a pedal sewing machine on it. So clearly, this meant I was going to have to build the closet desk in the studio. Continue reading →