Studio build: before

Meet the new home of Tangible Daydreams! It doesn't look like much yet, I know. But look a all the possibilities! The previous owners of my new home are in the house proper for a few weeks more, but we have access to the out building now. It is an L shaped building, and you are looking at one wing of it here. The other wing will be Brian's recording studio eventually. That side has higher ceilings and no windows, which is good for recording. This side? Look at all that light!

The old ratty garage cabinets are all coming out. The plan is to put vinyl tile squares on the floor, insulation and dry wall on the walls and ceiling, and turn the lift up garage type door into a set of double french doors. There is a swamp cooler right now, but I want to put in proper air conditioning to better deal with the Arizona summers. I'll have a ceiling fan in the center of the room, and two solar tubes for even more natural light.

I can just about picture it all in my mind. I'm not sure exactly where various things are going to go inside the studio once we get the walls built yet. I spent today measuring out the positions of the doors and windows and such, and found that the walls are all different lengths. Not a true right angle corner anywhere, and the ceiling is slanted. This is going to take some Tetris skills to get everything working well. First step first.

Actually, the first step is going to be taking care of the roof, which has a few leaks. We've got the stuff for that already. Then the insides. In between packing up and moving my whole house over. We're staging boxes into the recording side, and setting up some wood working stuff into the fiber side to do the build with.

I'm getting excited, can you tell??

Ok, less time on line, more time packing boxes. Back to work!

Just keep packing... Just keep packing...

If you're following along, you know that a bit back we put an offer in on a new house. We got it!!! The papers are signed, all is in order. The folks who had it before us are there until the end of the month, to give them time to move to a different part of the state. But we get access to the out building that will be my new studio this coming week. Wheeee!

And so I am in the process of tearing down my current studio, and boxing it away. The cats are NOT AMUSED at the changes. I am alternately bouncing off the walls excited, and weepy at leaving here. I've been in this house for about a quarter of a century, and I don't like change very much. I'm rather like the cats in that fashion. Except I haven't gotten to the hissing part. Yet.

So, there is a lot of dust, and So Many Things to figure out what to do with. We're only moving about 20 minutes away, and my grown up kids will be still staying in the current house, so we can do the move a van load at a time. Which is a good thing. Because our plan had been to call in a couple of decades of moving kharma, and tag everyone we know to come haul boxes and lift furniture. But, well, there is a wee problem of a pandemic going on. It is awfully hard to have a moving party and social distance at the same time. So it is going to be up to us. Oy. I am going to have so many new muscles when I am done with this all! And I'm going to feel each and every one of them.

Stay tuned. After the move, there is going to be the new studio build. But first, all the packing.

Dreaming of a move

My 'baby' boy turned 18 recently, and he graduates high school this year. Now, when my (now 20 year old) daughter first started school in kindergarten, we took a pact to try to remain in one place and one house while the kids were growing up and in their school years. We wanted to give them a time of stability and continuity as a foundation for going forward. So we found a lovely house in the Phoenix, AZ suburbs, and it has served us well.

But...my baby boy is graduating this year, and heads off to join his sister at college next fall. That means, should we choose, that we are no longer tied to this house. For the sake of jobs and local family, we'll still stay in the Phoenix area. But sometime between when we moved in here and now, the powers that be put a big mucking football stadium within walking distance --and earshot-- of our house. I'm starting to feel kind of closed in here, as what used to be farmers fields in the neighborhood are filled with arenas, outlet malls, and apartment complexes. It is almost time to move back out beyond the borders of the urban crowding.

So, I've started looking and house listings, and dreaming. And you know one of the things that excites me most about this possible opportunity? I just might be able to find a place where I can expand my studio!

I currently use what used to be our guest bedroom. It is jam packed with looms and sewing machines and bookshelves and storage totes and cutting tables and...and... And I just don't have enough room to work on more than one project at a time. If I have the loom unfolded for a weaving project, there isn't enough space to open up the cutting table to do silk painting. If I have the loom folded up and shoved over so I can get to the sewing machine, I'm blocked from getting in to the sock knitting machine. Etc. Wouldn't it be awesome to find a place where I can spread out, and really flex my creative muscles?

I looked at one house that had a separate apartment down in the basement. Hmmm...main room for the looms and such, a bedroom for storage, and a complete kitchen where I could do the silk painting and dyeing. Very intriguing!

Then I found another listing that had a whole separate 1 bedroom house tucked in behind the main house. Imagine the fun of taking over an entire house for playing with creativity! And if I was in a separate building, I could set aside the fact that I really 'ought' to be doing laundry, or dishes, or vacuuming, or... I'd be away, and at work. But still close enough to trot across the yard home when I needed to. Which means I could still be doing 1 am weaving projects. Love it.

So many possibilities...

After my son graduates. It will be next summer at the earliest, and then we'll see what we can find when.

But...it is a fun mental game. I don't take to change easily, so taking 8 months or so to mull the idea over in my brain means that when the time comes, I should be able to leave here.

So...what would be my ideal studio...?