Catching Up - Studio Changes

Catching Up

I can't believe that it has been almost 2 months since I've posted.  I have missed QuiltCon.  These two quilts went to the show and were happy to be seen! Since I wasn't there, I watched a lot of Periscope and Instagram.  It was so nice to get the virtual tour!

Falling

One Earth

I have been tackling a few new house projects.  The biggest is the re-finishing of my hardwood floors in my studio.  It has needed to be done for about 10 years now.  The only hitch is moving EVERYTHING out of the studio.  I mean really, who wants to do that?? Meanwhile, since everything was out of the studio, I decided it was also a good time to remove the popcorn texture from the ceiling.  My moveable design walls are just tall enough to constantly bump into that stuff and have it rain on my floor.  And, it is unattractive.

scraping off the popcorn texture

covered in dust from the patching and sanding of the ceiling

And paint? Yes! The old purple walls will be painted a nice and light reflecting white paint.  I will miss the old purple, a lot, but I think I might be able to see better with white on the walls. I also wanted to mention, for the curious among you, that my body feels significantly older than the last time I scraped ceilings and painted walls.  This may be the last time I do this.

Here is a photo of the before floor, walls, and one of the bookshelves. The bookshelves were built in place. It is a simple construction, and very effective for storage. However, the bottom board sits on the floor.  To sand the floor, the bookshelves had to go. They are too large to move, because they reach from floor to ceiling, so I had to take them out, one board at a time...

goodbye old purple walls

The most fun so far was seeing the floor after sanding.  My fabulous workers painted samples on the floor of the new colors, and I got to pick!  It was fun.  Then they sanded off the samples and then stained the floor. Also fun, hiring someone to do the work.  These guys were VERY skilled and I so appreciate their craftsmanship and professionalism.

Floor sample colors, and the new white walls

Today is the last coat of the polyurethane, and then there will be days of outgassing the fumes.  Then I will go back to work, painting and re-installing the baseboards, putting in the sink, re-building the bookshelves, and then moving back in.  The sink! I found, hidden in my closet, a functioning water supply and drain!  So I bought this little sink at IKEA.  It took quite a few hours to assemble the 6 million pieces, but I am looking forward to having it in my studio!

IKEA sink for my closet + cat

I also decide to put in new window coverings.  My old ones were purple, like the walls.  I want nice white light, so I bought a white shade for the window, and white replacement slats for the vertical blinds covering the door.  The white replacement slats were NOT white, they were beige.  Bleah....It was disappointing, but not a disaster. Paint to the rescue.  One by one, I painted both sides with wall paint.  That is actually how I got the old purple blinds purple, I painted them too.

painting the vertical blinds 

Soon I hope to be happily quilting in my studio again, instead of stumbling over pieces of my studio in the rest of the house.  Cheers!