The shelves and art look lovely! Warm and inviting. Well done my friend.
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Thanks Jennie, your reading space is looking incredibly calm, lovely & cheery all at the same time.
The flower boxes on the front of the building were falling apart so we took them off.
What a terrible mess. Wood over wood full of wet dirt for years. We’ll have to temporarily patch this until we’re ready to redo the front.
Here’s the place about a hundred years ago.
We’d like to set in the entrance where it used to be at the far right & have 2 doors, 1 to the main floor & 1 for the upper apartment with a wall dividing the space. Right now it’s all open, not ideal for private quarters & a commercial space.
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That old picture looks so cool, straight out of a Western! A seperate entrance would be great, so you can come and go without disrupting a class or having to meet customers. Did the previous owners not live there? I can’t see why you would remove the completely seperate entrance unless the whole building was used commercially. Seperate entrances would also allow you to rent out a part of the building should that ever be necessary, or part of your retirement planning.
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I measured and realized the circular cart would be too big for my studio so I ended up getting another Raskog instead.
I moved all of my fluid acrylics over to the top shelf of the cart so I can easily roll it over to my desk or easel. I’d like to use them more but found it was a bit cumbersome to need to pull out the heavy bin they were stored in before so hoping this helps. I’m considering putting all of my Liquitex Basics and Amsterdam acrylics on the middle shelf for the same reason. The bottom shelf has my bins of scrap paper that I haven’t really been able to access since I moved down to my studio so that should be a win as well. Today I want to 3d print at least one organizer for the top shelf.
My goal for this cart is to not hang anything off the sides so it’s as movable as possible in my studio. But if you’ve seen any of my other carts, you know that’s a big ask 
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Lol I wonder how long it will ook this empty!
It’s a great cart though. I use it a lot. You are the storage pro here, I just get what you recommend 
I bought this cart and also the Ikea Alex drawers. My Alex is quite heavy and doesn’t really move, but I move around the cart all the time. I keep my small ironing board on top of it and I pull it towards the middle of the room, next to my cutting desk, when I’m quilting and cutting to size.
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They are so handy! You really know how to make the best of storage space while still making your supplies readily available!
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I feel like I am juggling several longer-term house projects.
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I am still working on redoing my six outdoor dining chairs with wood slats. If that were all there was to it, they would be further along, but I am also repainting the metal bases. I got two more of the bases done before I went on a road trip with a girlfriend and then was simply not in the mood to start cutting wood slats for the first week after my return. I did it yesterday, tho! I plan to sand today and start staining tomorrow. Part of the hassle of this project is the wait time involved in painting the metal bases and staining the wood. The active time for staining the slats for two chairs is probably around 2 hours, but it will take 3 full days. Longer if I don’t do step 2 exactly 24 hours after step 1 (same for steps 2 and 3). In order to do the last 2 chairs, I will need to buy more wood; this time I will hand select my own pieces.
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Rejiggering the other two bedrooms. The craft lab/auxiliary guest bedroom became the library/TheMisterT’s WFH office/guest room and the guest room/TheMisterT’s WFH office as become the craft room/auxiliary guest room. BUT we’ve been waiting on the cabinet bed, because we ended up working with a local furniture maker who also does murphy beds. He’d never heard of a cabinet bed and was interested in going for it, but had to figure it out, so it’s taken longer than anticipated. Partly, waiting for supplies that I ordered that we didn’t know we needed until nearly the end. That part of it reminded me how spoiled I have become about online orders being shipped quickly. I’m not even talking about the shipping time. Some latches I ordered from a specialty dealer took at least a week to even be shipped, even though they were listed as in stock! They say right in the listing that they will take 5-7 days to ship the in-stock stuff. WHY!? This is not a hole-in-the-wall business - they’ve been a mail-order/online stored for AGES. Anyway, we might have that piece at the end of this week which will mean we’ll be very close to done with the switcheroo of those 2 rooms. I still have to totally redo each of their closets, but I fully accept that this is Future TheMistressT’s “problem.”
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Home improvements always take 2 to 3 to 4 times longer throuh sheer obstanence.
The one week shed floor repair turned into 3 weeks due to my minor illness, upper 90s weather and a strained back. Everytging is back in, but we still have some organizing bits to do.
Several years ago the bedroom remake took 2 months longer and the kitchen reno took4 months longer.
And the porch we built during covid took a year longer because the doors and windows were delayed…as was everything else in the world.
But, we never learn. Maybe that’s why we still jump in with bright sparkling eyes of hope!
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People always tell me, why don’t you hire out jobs, it’s so much faster, it would save you so much time.
We have some yardwork that needs to be done to the front yard - there’s a bush that needs to be trimmed and that’s long overdue, the neighbours are complaining, but I’m allergic to it so I can’t do it. My skin breaks out in hives whenever I touch it and it’s getting dangerously close to our front door, I’ve touched it a few times lately. Plus some pavers that we lifted and put back in when we replaced pipes during our big renovation. They ended up wonky which is dangerous for someone as clumsy as me. They need to be put back properly by someone who knows how to do it.
I’ve already spent so much time finding someone to that job, at some point even entered into a contract with someone and took the PTO to be home when he was supposed to come, just for him to not turn up and not respond to me until a day later. It’s a two hour job and it’s taking months.
At this point I’m almost ready to find a long sleeved T-shirt, gloves and a hood, and ductape to tape them together, to trim the thing without touching it, and find a paving class to learn to do a proper job and it would still be faster than wainting for a guy.
Although, I tried to take a professional painting class so I would never have to call “a guy” again even for things like wood repair and all the classes I signed up for at various institutions got cancelled too
Also: why is it always “a guy” and always someone totally unreliable. I bet a woman could do that sort of stuff way better. I know in the building trade it’s not always going to be predictable but you can totally let someone know the current job is going to take longer and you’re going to be a little late. I would pay extra if I knew a business was woman-owned.
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@marionberries Yes, these things always seem to take longer! Even with professional help. There are so many seemingly small things that need to come at the right times and a lot of times, they don’t. Luckily, I never expected either of these things to be quick and set no firm expectations for finish times. I mean, I got to take a week-long trip with a dear friend! And TheMisterT was gone for a week in March and a couple of days in June. He’ll be gone again for a few days in July. Not that he’s really participating much in these projects, but he does help care for our young/active dog, cook all dinners, and can help with the occasional heavy lifting. Also, I prefer to do most of the power saw use with another human on premises.
@Immaculata It’s soooo hard to find people who you feel right about, who want to do the job, and who are available soon-ish. I agree that a smaller percentage of women contractors would flake out, not in small part because in construction trades women have to be way better in order to be considered worthy at all.
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Oof…my husband just spent 20 minutes mansplaining why he was going to have to have some guys come in to help him move some heavy studio equipment so we could move the rug out to let it dry after the flood. I took two minutes to size it up, got my lever thingy, lifted the items and got the rug out with three lifts pretty much on my own.
He is now doing the same thing with the other rug. When I tried to tell him how it could be done, he just yelled “NO”, so I left the room. Women see things differently and are way better problem solvers. UGH. I am not helping him anymore.
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Oh, dear. Sometimes they are so tender in the machismo area. 
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…did you maybe spoil his excuse to hang out with friends?
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I stay away from the music room unless my help is specifically asked for (which is basically never). I just let him and the music guys figure it out.
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Ha ha maybe…he figured out something else (he lifted the rugs with wooden blocks and bought two more fans to blow them dry in place)…I am staying out of the way
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Love having one place for all home renovation ideas.
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Earlier this week I decided to stop putting off painting the upstairs hallway. By painting it, I can rehang TheMisterT’s guitars that used to hang in what is now my craft lab and by getting them hung, I can put the bulky cases back in the shop storage. My plan was to paint it the same as the stairwell which is the same as all the public spaces downstairs. I bought 5 gallons of that paint when we first moved in here so assumed that I had plenty to do this little space. NOPE. I had half a gallon. I did get two coats on the wall where the guitars will go and a coat on the ceiling today (Saturday). Monday, I’ll verify there is still a PPG dealer in my area and if so, pick up a couple more gallons. If not, I have found a suitable Benj. Moore color that IC an finish the hallway with. Even with color-matching, the different brands versions of sheens are not the same, so touch-ups with Benj Moore on my PPG walls would show. I was able to get save about 2/3 pint of my last can in a canning jar that I vac-sealed, so hopefully, this will get me through some years of living her before having to paint whole walls again.
I am a little bummed that I am not going to be able to get this whole thing done over the weekend, but I’m rolling with it. I will probably hang the guitars tomorrow (Sunday), they’ll be easy to just set aside when I do the rest of the painting next week.
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It’s been a big week here at my place! On Thursday, the custom cabinet bed was finally delivered! There are a lot of pics, because I am excited to share both the design and the “engineering” details! Sadly my photo skills don’t really show the gorgeous walnut veneers at their best.
Deets: Outlets on both sides for standard plugs, USB-A and USB-C. The handles… I LOVE them. They’re cast metal and super heavy, 8" for the “doors” and 6" for the drawer. From Rejuvenation Hardware and a bit of a splurge.
And here’s how this cabinet turns into a queen-sized bed. There are wheels on the drawer assembly to support it all. The furniture maker did those pretty walnut inlays to cover the support structure!
The top folds back, the “doors” fold down, then another panel folds down. I asked for extra room at the top of the cabinet to store pillows, if it had been made just to fit the tri-fold mattress, I think both panels would’ve been close to the same dimensions. There are latches inside to hold the “doors” shut just in case someone didn’t know what this piece was.
(pic to come)
The mattress unfolds onto the platform. All the bedding fits in the cabinet and drawer!
This is a real space saver while still giving us a decent sized guest bed! I am currently sourcing rechargeable reading lights for the inside.
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