One Room Challenge – The Studio – Week 3

 

Well, I feel like I’ve made some huge progress on my One Room Challenge to share with you this week.  My body feels like it was huge progress anyway…

Guys, the studio is empty.

Empty.

Like a few tools I needed and a ladder kind of empty.  Here it is with just a few bigger pieces left in it…

And it’s huge.  I had no idea how much space I had.  Maybe I should rephrase that.  I had no idea how much stuff I had.  So. Much. Stuff.  I filled a garage bay with all that stuff, piles on top of piles.  But I don’t think you really want to see that….

Since last week’s update, which you can read HERE, I discovered that it wasn’t the task of redoing the studio that overwhelmed me, it was all the stuff I had collected and hung onto that overwhelmed me.  To the point that I didn’t enjoy going out to the studio anymore.  All the stuff was making it hard to move around and hard to find a surface to work on.  It had become a joy suck.  The spot that had been my happy place was sucking the joy and the creativity out of my life.  Here’s a quick flashback for you, in case you forgot just where we started:

The space will be well guarded when it comes to putting things back in.  I already have a plan to eliminate some of the furniture that had lived in there.  And I’m going to do some serious purging and sorting.  I’m hanging onto things for potential projects and makeovers.  But if I never get around to it, then it’s time to let it go.  I can’t do everything, I can’t make everything and I will no longer hang onto everything.

I’m really thinking about how I use the space and what jobs I do in there.  I was doing the dustiest jobs right beside a shelf that was filled with little knick-knacky things.  Duh!!  That was dumb!  It was always dusty!!  And I don’t want to go to the studio to do housework, I want to play, to create!  Needless to say, this space is going to function much better when all is said and done!

One of the main reasons I wanted to whitewash the walls was because it was a busy backdrop to photograph against.  But it really didn’t matter since there wasn’t a wall to photograph against anyway! So in the new plan, there will be empty wall space and I’ll try my very hardest not to fill it.  I struggle with gaps…truly I do!  Until I want to photograph something and there’s stuff everywhere!

It was a huge job just to empty the studio out but I finished it and started the white washing before my friend, Catherine, showed up to lend a hand.  One of the things I love about Catherine is she is my sounding board.  When I’m debating something, whether it’s in real life, in fashion or style or in decorating, I use her to bounce ideas off.  So, when the whitewash wasn’t quite looking how I had hoped it would, I stopped and waited for her arrival so I could get her take on it.

She agreed that it wasn’t quite right but maybe we should let it dry before making the final call.  But during this whole debate, the decision was made to paint the trim work throughout the studio a solid white and no longer just white wash it like I was originally going to do.  So, while we waited for the trial white washed section to dry, we put a coat of primer on all the window and door trim.  And by the time we finished that, we knew the white wash really would be alright and we carried on with the rest of the walls in the ratio I had mixed up.  { If we decided to go with a more solid white wash, it would’ve meant waiting to do the work unto I could get back to Phillips and Chestnut another day for more Farmhouse White Miss Mustard Milkpaint because, of course, I mixed all I had….and I even know better!! }

Three walls later, Catherine left with some of her kids and I continued on painting the last, and hardest wall…the diagonal wall.  Ugh.  To prevent dry lines and weird overlap marks, a complete board needed to be done at once, which was pretty easy on the horizontal boards but meant a whole lot of climbing and squatting on the diagonals!  But I finished it off, with a 1/4″ of paint left in the bottom of the big Tupperware container I was using to mix and hold all the paint.

So, once again, my To-Do list grew!  Let’s review:

Sew Curtains for the prep table – done

White wash the walls – done

Paint the floor

Frame the chalkboard

Paint the sewing desk – kinda done

Paint and hang the corner cabinet

Paint the doors

Paint the sewing chair – kinda done

Paint the trim – kinda done

But look at that progress!!  Looks a million times better – so bright and fresh….maybe that’s just because I washed the windows, though….

So much to do, so little time left!!

To be continued,

Lori

PS – To see other guest participates of the One Room Challenge – click the logo below