Done!

Or rather, essentially done. We did the last few major tasks in the new studio today. We installed the small shelves above where the table loom will be stored. We put up the mirrors on the inside of the closet doors. We moved the floor loom back in and it's now waiting for me to start in on its restoration and repair. I also moved in some of the other stuff that needs to go back into the room. I still have boxes to go through and things to put away or toss. But it's basically done. And it looks beautiful. I LOVE this room. It makes me happy.

Another thing that made me happy this weekend was that we got our garage cleaned out. Thanks to Michael and Sarah, we now have a garage we can walk into and locate what we need. We also have a pile of trash piled up in front of our house awaiting pickup by the city trash workers this coming Wednesday. I feel slightly guilty about filling up a landfill with this stuff, but then again, I have a clean garage. I'll live w/ the guilt.

Progress Report

The good news is that the major construction work on the studio is done. The last building project was a stand for my table loom. I had been keeping this loom on my childrens' old play table. It was a less than satisfactory solution, but I just couldn't figure out what I wanted for a stand. I'm glad I waited until we did the studio, because once I got the closet done, I decided I needed a simple stand that would be on castors and enable me to store this loom in the closet. So, I built it one night about a week or so ago. I used the same type of wood and construction techniques as we used on the worktable. I still need to sand and paint it, then we can put the castors on and it will be done.

Here's the loom on the stand in position in the closet. I like that I'll be able to put a storage container under the loom and still roll it out easily when I want to work on it. This shot also shows the pegboard wall we put in the closet to hide the box for the built-in shelving.

This is the finished worktable and the metal draftsman's chair I bought in Warrenton. I do plan on making a cushion for the stool.

The worktable from the shelving side. These are going to come in very handy for in-progress projects.

The chair and table were the idea of my neighbor Sally, who came over to check out progress on the room one night and said, "You know what you need in here? A comfy chair that someone could sit in to knit while other people are working." I found the little table first when I was at Warrenton, and couldn't resist it. After all, the knitter in question will need somewhere to put her wine glass. And it will also do double duty as a night stand when we have to use the room as a guest room. The chair was also bought at Warrenton. I saw it on my first trip, but didn't even ask how much it was. Then I couldn't get it out of my mind. So, a week later, when I was on my way back from Austin with my daughter, we stopped and went looking for the booth where I had seen 'the chair.' Luckily it was stil there and I was able to make a great deal for it. It's extremely comfortable and I love it. The picture above the shelves was another Warrenton purchase.

Another view of the chair and table. The items leaning against the wall are parts from the floor loom, which will go in that space.

I have a lot of small jobs left to do in the studio, plus I haven't even started on restoring the floor loom yet, but we've been taking advantage of some nice weather to take care of another project I dreamed up outside. For many years now, we've had a large assortment of plants in pots lining the iron fence between the house and garage. But while this did occasionally look nice, most of the time that area was a mess and a pain to clean up thanks to the two large oak trees in our back yard. And since this area get some of the best light in our yard, we need it for some of the plants we like to grow. Like tomatoes and peppers. But we've had less than stellar success growing them in pots. So, we decided to build two large planters on either side of the gate.

These are the planters after we finished construction. We used 6"x2"x8' or 10' cedar boards. It was a little tricky to make them fit as we had to build trapezoidal shapes to fit snugly into the two spaces. The finished units are each 18" deep. We stacked the layers on top of each other and fastened them together with metal strips inside the units. We then lined them with weed cloth and filled them with a mixture of old leaves (they'll compost in the units), top soil and garden soil. Then today, we planted them.

Here are the finished units. I love the way they look and the extra space I have for plants. I have a mixture of vegetables, herbs, and flowers in them. We still need to finish installing an irrigation system which will work on a battery-operated timer. Hopefully we'll be able to get that done tomorrow.

Not bad for a week's work. The rest of the backyard will take a little longer. We lost quite a lot to the cold weather we had this year. I'm currently trying to figure out what I want to go along the house where we had some huge hibiscus bushes. I can't say that I will miss the hibiscus as they had gotten out of control. But I am not looking forward to digging their remains up. Whatever goes in that bed will definitely be smaller. For now though, it's time for bed. There's still a lot of things left to be done this weekend.