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.

As always when thinking about paint, the thing to do is get paint chips. So I went to Lowes and grabbed every shade of beige that looked even vaguely right, and a slew of greens and blues to consider. And then I spent about a week trying to talk myself out of the color I liked best, which can only be described as chartreuse. And then I gave in, because I loved it. And after two more trips to pick up more chips, I found a beige that, while not quite the same as the wall color, would match well enough that there wouldn’t be a really obvious line at the corner where it met the previous beige. In the meantime, I’d ordered the magnetic paint additive (otherwise known as ‘a can of iron powder’, I think).

So I did three coats of magnetic primer in the area I wanted to make magnetic, feathering out the edges so there wasn’t a sharp line between the magnetic and the rest of the wall.

Magnetic paint is weird – it creates this texture, and because it’s metallic, it feels cold when you touch it. I actually sanded the wall between each coat, which made it take more coats to build up enough metal for magnets to stick, but made the final texture much less noticeable.

Once I’d confirmed that my wall would hold magnets, it was time for the actual paint. I did two coats of the green, and one and a half coats of the beige – it only had a few spots where it didn’t cover sufficiently in one coat. I also grabbed my semigloss white from the closet desk and shelves and painted the trim around the new door. Once that was done, the corner looked like this:

The magnetic paint still worked, even with two coats of color over it, and you can’t tell visually where it starts and stops – if you run your hand across it, you can feel where it is, but it doesn’t show from a distance. Perfect.

And then I did a lot more painting – my desk, its drawers, and the art drawer stack all got painted. I sanded them down enough that the paint would hold, and did a good coat of primer on everything. I decided to replace the handles on my desk drawers, so I pried off the wooden handles, filled the screw holes with wood putty, and sanded the surfaces flat. Then I decided to remove the locks, since I’ve never had the key that goes to them. Once I’d gotten the locks out, I decided not to replace them – I’ve never felt the need for locking desk drawers, and they’d look a lot nicer without the brass locks, anyway. So I got a dowel that fit in the hole left behind from removing each lock mechanism, cut them to the drawer depth, and glued them in, puttied over them, and sanded them flat. With that done, I could go ahead and paint them the color I wanted, and then install new handles.

With all this painting going on, my cats were banned from the room for a couple of days – at first, I’d allowed them to hang out with me, until Dante went under a side of the desk that had been primed and got a stripe of primer on her back that it took me several days to get off. From then on out, no cats near the painting. They protested this, loudly, from the other side of the door, every time I went in to do some work, and I got adept at opening the door while body-blocking them from entering.

Finally, the painting was done, the drawers were dry, and I could put everything in place. So this is what the studio looks like right now:

and this is a closer view of the desk (note the stuff sticking to my magnetic wall):

and the mobile above the desk (the final form of the one I was designing in this post

and the other side of the room, with actual stuff in the closet nook, plus a bookcase that is far too small for the wall it’s on:

And that is where my studio stands today. I’m plotting a bookcase to replace the tiny one in that last photo, so that may happen soon. Also, lighting – there isn’t a ceiling light yet, because the skylight replaced it, and I’m beginning to think I need something other than just a central fixture (partially because there is no “central” ceiling space – hi, skylight – and I seem to be planning to have 3 workspaces, and one light is not going to cover that). There will also be a big work table in the middle of the room, just as soon as I have the time to acquire the pieces for it. So there is still much to do in the studio, but it has come a long way towards the super-useful space I know it can be. Right now, I’m loving spending time there, which is really the goal.