Karla's Cottage

Studio tour part two, behind some doors

It would be impossible to pick a favorite thing about the studio redo.  Unless it is the time spent with my boy.  Adam drove out from NC for a week of work to transform the cold, hard, cement floor into a cushy, warm vinyl one.  

While here, he got the work done in record time so we were able to have some fun adventures while we had him in the same state for a while.  And he accomplished so many other giant, or little helpful tasks.

 He repaired the basement foundation (very big!)

Tuck pointed the rest of the foundation

Hung chandeliers and branches on my ceiling

Repaired my desk chair

Replaced all of the weather stripping throughout the house

Fixed a water damaged threshold

Trimmed up some damaged siding and screwed the downspout into place so it wouldn’t happen again

Helped haul and reposition all of the furniture back into the studio once the floor was done, into a puzzle piece layout that made the most of my square footage

And that was just in the spare time he had since the floor was finished so quickly.

Basically, he wandered around the house and figured out what needed some tweaking or redoing, and just fixed it.  He was busy all day long and into many evenings the whole week he was in Kansas. Sugarwings was thrilled to have her daddy around, and so was I.  It’s not that often that a mom gets a complete week of one on one time with a grown son, especially one who is a master craftsmen and fixes everything that he sees wrong.

 

I had a vision of exactly how I wanted my tagging/shipping area by my desk, but the pieces didn’t quite fit.  Adam stopped to cut small bits of wood to adjust heights and made this come together for me.

Having all of the items I need for price tags, printing, and shipping is going to make getting inventory ready to sale a breeze.  I might hang a curtain over the bottom of the table though.  The piles under there kinda take away from the streamlined look I wanted.

While adding my goodies back into the room, I spent time thinking about how to store them in a better way.  Instead of piling all the fabric into this cabinet, I separated by type or color and used cardboard boxes and a basket to make dividers.

The loveliest fabrics and lace panels were put behind glass.

Instead of keeping my beloved wallpaper in a hard to get to stack, it’s now in multiple, easy reach containers.

Some things were left as is.  I’ve always liked having this glass topped box of jewelry on a table near my work area.  These are mostly pieces meant for gluing onto projects.

The stacked, plastic boxes of beads and findings to make jewelry are all stashed in this cabinet.  I’d covered the back wall in a pretty wallpaper, but then didn’t like seeing the chaos of the plastic bins.  So I got out more wallpaper and taped it up on the inside of the glass to hide the supplies.  

This is a table that I hope to keep cleared for making jewelry.  The tall cabinet is filled with books and behind its wallpaper covered door is tools.

Many of the things inside this piece are in the same spot they always were, just the cabinet is moved.  Same with all of my little wallpaper covered chests.  I can still find most things, the cubbies they are in haven’t changed.  Old habits are hard to break, so I did my best to reuse the same boxes for the same stuff, just in a better way.

My paintings, family fairy pictures, and gifts from friends are gathered into one inspiration board type spot instead of scattered around the room.

This is the storage area back in the corner behind the screen.  I’ll be bringing stack of painted furniture in to fill it up and possibly overwhelm this space.  But at least it will be out of the way and in its own spot.  

These shelves are filled with breakables and stuff that doesn’t easily fit in tubs.  It’s all inventory for the antique mall.  I also use clear plastic tubs to store stuff for my booth, and stack them up in the garage.  As I buy goodies at garage sales, I sort them into color or season and put them into the clear bins.  Now, if I could just train myself to tag them first…

All of the items for sale online go into a cabinet next to the computer so I don’t mix it up with my other inventory.  I hope to get this piece stocked up for the holidays now that I have finished this huge reorg of my studio.

Of course, there is a dog bed and basket of toys by my desk too. Molly and Dorothy like to hang out with me there. 

Molly always needs her toys nearby.

Thanks for looking around with me!  Now, I’m going to go enjoy that room that we worked so hard to recreate.

 

 

Not just a new floor, a whole new look and organizational system in the studio

I have officially moved back into the finished studio!

And I adore each and every little nook and corner.

Not only is the new wall color calming and serene, the new floor warm and easy on the feet, the area seems so much more spacious.

Mostly, it is the same stuff rearranged into a more peaceful set up.  Previously, my computer area was a dark, crowded hole because I wanted it out of sight.  Now it is laid out so that everything is attractive and still workable. 

Inventory for the antique mall had taken over the room.  Now, I’ll be (hopefully) containing it in this corner, behind screens and pretty doors.  

The lighting has had some big changes.  My workspace is now in front of the window, which helps a lot.  I’d had stacked furniture for good juju there and it had completely blocked any sunlight from streaming in, so that stuff is now located in the back corner storage area that doesn’t even have a window to block.

All of the table lamps’ and chadies’ lightbulbs have been switched out to clear, white, daylight LED bulbs.  Which means I have an boxful of mismatched off white and soft white bulbs that I won’t be using.  At my age, I need all of the clear, clean light I can get.

My son added two chandeliers on hooks above my work zone.  I covered the cords in branches and floral vines.

I was able to gather all of the wallpaper cabinets together for a bigger statement.  And they are convenient, right behind my rolling chair so I can glide over and grab supplies out of the drawers.

Rolls of wallpaper are no longer in the big cabinet once used for treats and storage.  That giant piece is now in my breezeway, filled with outdoor cushions that I used to have to stash here, there, and everywhere.

The wallpaper is divided into five different containers and (sorta, but not quite yet) separated by color or style.

Pretty curtains that had been jammed into drawers, now are folded up behind glass so I can enjoy them.

Mt main goal was to find the very best options for all of the stuff that had taken over, and store it away into an intentional way.  Labeled, or plainly in view.  Because I tend to lose or forget I had things.  

A place for everything and everything in its place!

Most of the cabinets are filled with functional supplies.  But I did indulge a bit with just pretties.  The one on the left holds my scrapbooks.

And my hutch still has a few collections behind the glass doors.

Although, about a third of the hutch is now used for supplies, not just pretties.

I’ll show you more details in my next post  for now, I want to go and play in my new studio.

 

 

A musical interlude

A few years back, Guncle Randy and I redid a couple violins and fell in love with the process.  He has been on the search for more instruments for us to recreate.

After finding another violin for himself, he came across TWO  more that his brother, Mark had.  Mark and his partner, Allie had found them tossed away and snatched them out of a landfill.

 How nice that they offered them to us to use. Allie wanted us to Halloween one up for her, and we were thrilled to have THREE to play with.  

The one Randy wanted for himself had glowing wood grain that he didn’t want covered up, so his stayed natural.

Mine got painted white. (Big surprise)

With a crackle finish here and there.

I used crackle on the black one for Allie too.  It didn’t show up much til it was accented with silver wax.

We used lace as texture too.  


I didn’t get a full photo of mine, but will show one when I get it hung in the house with my previous creation.  Allie says hers will go onto her mantel.  And Randy’s will be wired into his Xmas tree.

This was our work space.
we moved all of the furniture to one side of the room to have it ready for my son to install the new floor.  Randy and I had a small table hidden in the forest of cabinets.  And we were lucky to have the guys here to help move stuff so the room was ready when Adam arrived to start on it. 


 I’ll leave you with some close ups of the musical trio. 

 

 

Guncles in Kansas

We had a Guncle-riffic visit last week.  They spent half the time with us, the other half with close friends in KC.  Their last night in Lawrence included a birthday party for that couple, who are family to the guys.

Now, down on Sweet Cherry Lane in Jax, the tablescapes and delicious food are legendary.  Randy keeps his dining table set on a regular basis and then goes even more all out when guests arrive.

 And the food, oh my.

So while they were visiting, I had Randy help me set my table.  

Our big craft project had been to restyle some violins.

So we incorporated those along with some violin sheet music.

We had a small group at a large table, and only needed to decorate half of it.  Kevin makes the best German chocolate cake, so that got center stage on the other half.

Dinner was a luscious lemon chicken.  And the company?  The best!

I’ll have some close ups of the violins in my next post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Generosity and Joy

I cannot begin to tell you my absolute dumbfounded joy when I was gifted with boxes of beauty.

Where to even begin?  This is just a portion of the bountiful gorgeousness that came my way.

I will let the photos speak for themselves.

Thank you, Liz!

A Marie Antionette make over on a cabinet and some tips on distressing paint

This cabinet was a bit of a steal, it’s big and spacious, just what I needed for my studio makeover.  Sturdy, but needed some love.

Inspired by all of the period tv shows I watch about kings and queens of Europe, I wanted to use Marie Antoinette colors on it.

And to age the brand new blush, soft blue, and gold I’d just added.

 I add grout to my paint, and use a crackle medium sparingly, not all over.  This is a piece of furniture not faux gator skin, I sincerely dislike overly fake crackly paint jobs.

And when I “distress” the paint, I go for it heavily with a sander to save my poor, old, tired hands.  Daintily roughing up corners with a scrap of sandpaper is hard on the finger joints.

So I give it a blast of the sander, which of course, leaves a trail.

That is a simple fix.  I touch up the zigs and zags with a rough brush dipped into the paint color that I just sanded.

Much better, no tell tale marks from the sander, just some skips in the paint that show the underlying wood.

After that, it gets a coffee colored glaze painted on and wiped off.

I still need to find two knobs for the drawer.  And I will rub a bar of soap or a candle along the drawer runners to make it slide easily.

After it was done, it reminded me of something…. 
I remembered that I had some gorgeous old wallpaper in these colors!

 Perfect!

I didn’t even care that I’d already gone to the trouble of painting the interior.  I was happy to cover up that work with this pretty paper.

And I am looking forward to seeing it in place in my newly redone studio.