First Steps

What could be more stimulating to the creative juices than a good studio rearrange and clean up?

For the past three years I have been trying to make the space off our kitchen work as my studio. I equipped it with three rectangular and one square IKEA tables when we moved in, thinking they would give me lots of creative space, but I had arranged them in an L along the windows and one wall. It looked great, but by the time I had my computer, printer, scanner, etc. on top I had very little real work space. But: I had a great big space in the middle of the room. It finally dawned on me that if I moved two of the rectangular tables to the middle of the room, I’d have one great big workspace with them pushed together and I’d have a lot of storage underneath - storage that I could actually access easily. The red console table underneath the windows is one of two I had stored in the basement and brought up. I bought three Sterilite plastic drawer units that fit nicely underneath it, and they had room on their tops for my for my trays of beads. On top of the red table is another IKEA piece that provides additional storage.

The big antique armoire is one my dad had in his studio. It’s a wonderful reminder of him and it holds a lot of supplies. I arranged things inside it so there’s a place for me to move the tray full of brushes and tools that sits in the center of the tables, giving me an extra big surface to work on. I also cleaned out the small closet to the right of the armoire. It holds my iron and ironing board along with tall rolls of canvas and other fabrics, and a tall IKEA bookcase for good measure.

I’m really pleased with all I’ve done. It’s even easy to straighten up at the end of the day since everything has a place.