Before and After: Studio

We spent New Year's weekend in a very noisy mess of hammers and fancy nail guns and air compressors. It was a crazy, fun, wild ride, and I am delighted to be on the other side of it all this evening. The above room became my studio in earnest around the first of October. Halloween costumes had to be made and I needed a space to create three of them simultaneously. It was functional, but not ideal. I found it rather ugly and, so, did not take any pictures of it (a nasty habit of mine when it comes to before-and-after posts). Last Saturday Sean and I trotted off to Home Depot to take our first step towards making this room a beautiful creative space.

Upon removing the carpet we found press board. It all had to be ripped out and replaced with plywood. Sean painted for two evenings in the meantime. On Thursday the new plywood was nailed down and Sean and his dad spent an hour-and-a-half figuring out just the right patterning for the bamboo flooring (complete with computer renderings (oh, I love that man!)).

On Friday Sean's dad (yes, two whole days in a row, bless his heart) and my parents joined the party. It was ridiculously noisy. I tried to stay downstairs, away from the all the ear-blasting bangs and pops. By about seven o'clock that night we all sat down to ice cream sundaes and then sent everybody home, sore and exhausted.

Today was the fun stuff - the icing on the cake. Sean, Djeryd and I got to put it all together. It took us all day, but at a nice leisurely pace. Djeryd was a huge help. I am so pleased with the results. I know I still have a few days, if not weeks, of organizing all the junk that doesn't have a home yet. And there is still a work table to be constructed to give my new stools a home (not to mention all my paper-crafting supplies). Thanks go out to my parents and in-laws (Carol, thank you for loaning me your husband for two days), my kiddos, and of course my darling, wonderful husband who pushed ahead through every obstacle with a glowing smile on his face and reassuring words on his lips.

For kicks, Sean wanted me to include my original conceptual drawings. I still need an ironing cupboard you see, and the drapes need to be made, but I think it's a pretty incredible match - all things considered.

Happy New Year, Everyone!!!!