Studio Makeover The Upcycling Way - Part the Second

Here it is, finished at last! I can't tell you what a relief it is to have my studio finally sorted and also how much I love it, and the wonderful Vincent for finding the materials and creating it for me. If you want to makeover your work space for practically nothing it can be done. Almost everything in here was repurposed from other parts of the house - like the old G-Plan sideboard for instance, or the sewing table which came originally from my mother's house and was languishing under our stairs. Most of the wood for the shelving came from a local yard which salvages old timber and sells it on for a charitable trust. The black kitchen counter top was rescued from a skip, as was the wood for the battens holding up the shelf ends.

My room has gone from hideous, cluttered mess with virtually zero organisation to being somewhere I can't wait to get into each day and, as a fantastic bonus, I unearthed all sorts of treasures I didn't know I had whilst sorting and organising everything. I even 'discovered' this old cabinet which came from Ikea about 20 years ago and gave it a makeover too! It'll be perfect for storing sewing related bits and bobs.

I ♥ my studio!

Studio Life and Facebook

I am still soldiering on with the reorganisation of my studio despite now being hampered with a frozen shoulder. Did I mention how fed up I am with all my physical wonkiness lately?

Anyway, as you can see, there is some small semblance of order being imposed as I now have my old G-Plan sideboard up there (still impressed with how V managed to manoeuvre this monster up our very steep and narrow dog-legged staircase!) and so more storage space.

I have not, however, managed to get any work done in all the chaos and am missing my paints and bits of paper very much. What I have done though is finally set up a Dancing-Girl page on Facebook. This will have updates on my work, general studio stuff, special offers and anything else I can think of which would be of interest. So if you'd like to, I'd be honoured to have you join me over there - just follow the link and click the 'Like' button!

Studio Makeover The Upcycling Way

Regular readers will know that I have been in the process of rearranging my studio workspace for, oh, months now. So to prove that I am actually making a little headway with it I wanted to share this very useful - and cheap - idea that Vincent came up with.

He found a whole load of pine slats, of the type which are used in wooden beds to support the mattress, thrown out with someone's rubbish. They were earmarked for burning in the stove but, after hearing me gripe about adequate storage for all my art supplies, he thought again. Each slat is about 5ft long by 6" wide, making them a great length for above my big work table and just the right width for storing pots of brushes, glues, gels and all those other things which I want to have within easy reach when I'm working. He also attached a row of wooden clothes pegs along one shelf which come in very handy for holding stencils, drying painted card and paper or just hanging odds and ends from. And there you have it, space for all the necessities as well as room for favourite displays!

Pride of place goes to, as always, my beautiful Japanese Neko or lucky cat who was a gift from Thea a few years ago and never fails to make me smile with his happy face! Click on the picture if you'd like to have a closer look at what else is there.

Where Is My Mind?

I am being a baaad art girl at the moment, not much new work being worked on, no indeed. Too many distractions, too little time (and energy, thanks to my insomnia stepping up a gear). I have got a couple of cute notebooks done - see above - inspired by the 27 Houses I showed you the other week. My favourite Murano paper for covers and hand drawn row of houses, so each one is original and different. The lime one was in an Etsy treasury which was on the entrance page of the site and it (the book) got 300 hits in the space of about an hour! Wow!

But I was talking about distractions, before I got, er, distracted. You will have heard me bleating on about the state of my studio for some time now. Well, I decided the other day that the only solution is to completely rearrange everything: workspaces, storage etc. (I just know I'm going to regret this). Anyway, Vincent very helpfully put up a row of narrow shelves to store all my miscellaneous pots of stuff and paints so that was what really got me started. With much huffing and puffing I managed to move the huge work table that we share into a better position against the wall so now there's much more space.

The plan is to have a separate small table for cutting - paper, fabric for quilts and so on - and a desk where I can have my sewing machine set up permanently, which will leave the big table for painting, collage and book binding. Of course there is a TON of stuff to sort through and find proper storage space for before that stage is reached, but it will be so much more accessible and pleasurable to use once I'm done - well that's what I keep telling myself anyway. Wish me luck!