Sue’s new studio

 

For several years, my creative space has been in a basement room and I have never liked being in the basement. I need light and space! Even though our boys are grown men and haven’t really lived in our home for more than a couple months at a time since 2007 & 2009 respectively, we have kept their bedrooms intact so they had a place to return that was their own. But over the last couple years, I have been eyeing those upstairs bedrooms with increasing envy and due to several life changes for all of us, Scott finally agreed to let me have one as my new studio. It was Mark’s bedroom for several years, then was the home of his recording studio, Mountain Beach House Studio. It underwent a complete transformation to become a recording studio, and when he found a great space a few blocks from his apartment in his city of residence, he moved all the equipment out and it became a guest bedroom. But I set up a folding table and ironing board and it became my  quilt space for several months with my paper crafts still in the basement along with all my fabric and supplies. But earlier this year the decision was made to make it my studio and the transformation began!

It started with Mother’s Day when Scott got me a sturdy, non-shaking IKEA desk to use as my sewing table, plus a swivel chair and plastic mat. I cannot tell you how much I love this desk! He also got me a drafting table from Hayneedle.com that has adjustable heights to use as my cutting table so I can stand to cut fabric without breaking my back from bending over. Totally awesome! Then began the process of room conversion. I scraped the residue from the foam sound insulation panels off the walls, but Scott did the ceiling residue and re-painted the room the same color, which is a nice soft gray.

For my birthday on July 4th, all I wanted was shelving for my studio. I got a Kallax unit from IKEA and Scott moved up the bank of wire shelving that had previously lived in the basement studio, plus installed new shelving we purchased for two other walls.

Mark came up for my birthday and another part of my present was the two of them ferrying all my supplies up the two flights of stairs and dumping them into my room for organizing. I have two wire paper racks that stack on top of each other that were another birthday present several years ago when my local scrapbook store went out of business. I wanted them in the closet and Scott said they would not fit on top of each other. Mark was the hero of the day when he managed to wedge them in stacked up, although he assured me that I’d better not feel a need to move them anytime soon as they were so tightly wedged they would probably withstand a massive earthquake.

So they dumped everything in my room and slowly I started to create order from chaos. The picture on the right is supposed to show coalescing order. Can you see it?

Lots of personal stuff happened in July and August and the work went at a glacial pace until finally in September I got back to making the room a place of order. We installed IKEA lighting over the scrap table and in the closet, and now the last thing to do is some decorating on a bare wall above my computer, but my studio is pretty complete with a fabric area and design wall, paper area, and computer and scanner area. And I love it! There is also some auxiliary storage of craft supplies in the basement room that is also a guest room, but my main supplies are to hand in one place! In case you’re wondering what’s behind the sunflower curtain, it’s my expensive quilting fabric in project boxes plus my scrap boxes, protected from light by the curtain.

Sewing Workspace

Paper Storage, plus fabric

Cutting Table with more scrapbook storage, Computer Workspace

Scrapbook Workspace

Thanks to Scott for giving me some “prime real estate” in the house to call my very own! Love and kisses!!