Sunday, July 12, 2009

Time for a Studio Re-Do

My studio has been a work in process for over 3 1/2 years now. I keep rearranging and reorganizing, it takes awhile to come up with the ideas and then a while longer to be able to finance those ideas. I call it 'phases" as in Phase 1, Phase 2, etc. I'm not sure what phase I'm on now, but it was time to de-clutter and regroup a portion of the studio.

This is the corner of my studio that was screaming for help - the business center (Ha! More like the clutter center). To the right in the photo is the door to the kitchen, only we never close the door -- too much trouble to move the quilt rack. This is the entrance to my studio, and it's sorta a narrow passage for my customers to enter an otherwise spacious room.

The other door on the left leads to my laundry room. Since that is also Pixxie's exit to the backyard the door is typically open. You can't see it, but to the immediate left is the end of my longarm. When my chair is at the computer table it's a pretty narrow passage to get to the laundry room...Plus it's an unsightly mess and I've been embarrassed way too long - no matter how hard I try, there I can't seem to win the paper wars..


So Friday night after our dinner and a movie we went shopping at Lowe's and came up with a solution. As you can see I have a most accommodating hubby...he had to work late on Saturday (as I did, a huge king size customer quilt on the frame) but knew he'd be working late in the studio. He's a willing partner as well as Pixxie being a willing helper. This photo is the corner diagonally across from the re-do corner. It's somewhat cluttered with all the mess I had to move out of the make-over area. Why is it that you have to mess up to clean up? Something I've never totally understood but have proven over and over!


By late Saturday night (and I mean late!) Part one of this phase was complete. Including removing the kitchen door that we never use. That alone freed up some visual space.

Naturally nothing goes together easily. Even with reading directions they somehow don't know how to write them in English any more these days, and if they do, they somehow manage to leave out important details that you have to discover for yourself, then undo what you just spent 30 minutes doing and do it a different way.


Well, it's been a long Sunday afternoon! First things first, we truly enjoyed worship this morning. Pastor Ron has started a new series. He preaches verse by verse and covers one book at a time. Today he began the book of Revelation and anticipates spending about 6 months in this study. If you are interested you can purchase CD's of the sermons or just go to the website each Tuesday and download the podcasts! Then knowing we had a lot of work to do this afternoon we opted for lunch out at a local pizza place...

Okay, back to the rambling and reporting in of the makeover.

Hubby finished the other two cabinets while I began the re-arranging of items...We finished up about 8 PM and are fixing to settle in for that leftover pizza we brought home. I still have some loose ends but they will have to wait until after work tomorrow....


I am so pleased with my new little corner! Not only is it brighter and more organized but there's more floor space. I still am 'living with' the paneling that we have wanted to paint since before we moved in, but there is never a good time to shut down the production of the studio to be able to accomplish this task. One day....

In the meantime I now have ALL of my quilting books in one place (and one room!), DVD's on the top shelf, machine quilting books on the second shelf, then the remaining shelves for piecing/quilting books. I've determined that I can't squeeze one more book in this cabinet (and hope that will curb my appetite). I am so truly blessed with such a wealth of information that now I just need to use what I have and re-discover the treasures in my new chest. I'm almost giddy with the excitement of that thought!

9 comments:

  1. The improvements to your studio look wonderful. do you think your hubby would like to come visit for a while? I could sure use his help. lol

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  2. Karen, it looks great. Doesn't it feel great when a project like that gets done?

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  3. What a great turn around in your studio! And what a book collection too! Its very liberating to organise a space, its surprising how much energy you will have to achieve more now! Great Job!

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  4. Great job! You've inspired me to get busy re-organizing my studio space.

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  5. LOVE the new furnishings!! Feel free to come my way and organize any time!! So where did your desk go, since you put these up?

    Kat

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  6. Karen,
    The white brightens up that corner too! Got a question-where can you sit to do the paperwork?

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  7. It looks fantastic! I can't believe someone has more quilting books than I do, but You Do! So where is your computer? It seems to have disappeared. :)

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  8. I love re-doing an old space into something new and organized, and your new space looks WONDERFUL! Good for you. As for painting, I understand about wanting to and never quite getting to it, my dining room and kitchen have needed paint for 15 years... still waiting because we can never find enough time to move everything out to paint.... Hope your paint job does not take as long!

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  9. Good job on the organization. I will do mine...some day...

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