Studio Redo, Converting the Garage into a Studio

I have been terrible about showing photos of my studio redo, it's been a very long process, because I have been working on my studio as I slowly redo it. Back in the fall, I mentioned it would be starting.... but now I am back with some pictures of the work we have done so far.

Let me back up and say, my old studio, as bright and pretty as it was had two big problems. The biggest of problems....no windows. I really was going crazy spending my days in a room without windows. See when we bought our house, my studio was here and not in the house. As busy and fun as it was to have the store and the studio, it was a TON of stress and not really where I wanted my business to be. Nik and I had lots of conversations on how to remedy the studio problem, moving vs. not moving, etc. We love our house and especially our yard, and we never actually used the garage for our cars. The last two years it had been full of camper parts.

So we decided that we would covert the garage in to my studio. Here's what we did to get the bones of the studio.

First things first, I painted it white. Oh ya, forgot to mention the second problem with my old studio was the color. It was beautiful too look at, but incredibly hard to take pictures in there. I am a huge fab of white backgrounds to make colors pop, so I decided the studio should have a white background. There's color coming, I promise.

We built a giant closet along the back wall. That will store all of my show displays, patterns, etc.

 Next, we put in a door, Nik and I were hi giving on this one. We have never cute a hole in a wall, let alone put a door in, we were very proud of ourselves. It actually was pretty easy after watching a few YouTube videos to get some help.

Feeling so handy we decided to put in a window as well. There was one already, but we added a second.

Then on to covering up the garage door.

I did not want the signs of a garage door, but I also wanted to be able to convert the studio back to a garage if we ever decided to move. Darn it! I am kicking myself for not taking pictures of this, but anyway, we left the door up. We had a garage door specialist come out and remove the tension from the door. We did this because my dad warned me that those springs can kill you if they pop, not something I wanted to deal with. After the spring tension was released, I removed the track and the opener from the ceiling. I put them those parts in the big storage closet. Then I sealed around the garage door and built a wall. I insulated and drywalled it, something else I had never done. 

It doesn't look like a garage at all! 

Heres' the view of the outside. I've got plans to turn this into a little terraced garden and sitting area. I am waiting on a warm up for that.

Stay tuned, I will be back soon with what I have been doing to the inside.

Have a great day,

Studio Redo

 

Hey, Hey,

Quilt Market and Bead and Button are over, my Jolly Holiday buttons have been shipped and it's time to relax right? Not quite...

So a long long time ago I had this beautiful studio. It was in Studios magazine and it even made it into there Studios book. Then a couple of things happened. the rain came after a very long drought in Georgia which caused flooding in my basement along with many others here. It was fixed, I repainted and did my best to get it together. At the same time all of this was going on I was just entering the world of fabric design, buttons were being made, etc. My studio became too small or just not set up for what I needed anymore. I just focused on my away studio and left this one be.

It's been driving me crazy lately. I really want to have a nice sewing area, better storage, etc. Now if you haven't figured this out yet, I like to redo my studio more than most others probably do. It might seem flaky but really I think it's keeping things fresh, and most of all me inspired.

So here we go again. Wanna hang with me while I redo this one? and another one? Oh ya, big plans are starting to take shape here. I couldn't be more excited.

 

 Here's my official helper. If there is a lap she thinks she is supposed to be sitting in it and I was sitting on the floor to take this photo. Right now she's in my lap as I type this post. So first I cleared most of the room and then I found these snazzy and super cheap peel and stick tiles. And as of right now, I think it's the only thing I will be spending money on. The rest I can do with what I already have. Sometimes it's just about mixing it up.

Stay tuned for more,

Jennifer

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Studios

Hello everyone,
This just arrived in my mailbox and I am sooooo excited! It's the summer Studios magazine. Guess who's in it? Yep, me I have four whole pages featuring my studio. It is super cool. I love seeing where people spend their time creating and I was really honored that my studio made it into the magazine. Hope you get to check it out.

Have a great day, Jennifer