Operation Work Space

How I transformed my studio in a week....

....with more than a little help from my dad and son.

I've been meaning to decorate the third bedroom for, lets see, 13 years now.  So, ever since we moved into this house, basically.  But it's come low on the priority list, despite it's change in use from box room to spare bedroom to study and finally to so-called studio.  The workspace has kind of evolved, lets say depending on needs and resources.  And resources have been minimal.  So I've managed with some old cobbled-together bookshelves, a wobbly trestle table (screwed to the wall for stability) and various bits of timber balanced on top of filing cabinets and the old  treadle Singer.  

And the blue.  Gotta talk about the blue.  It's not that it was a particularly nasty blue in itself, but the decorator (a novice I'm assuming) had adorned it with a plethora of 1990's "Changing Rooms" style paint effects.  Badly.  It was a little oppressive.    

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Added to which I cannot claim to be a particularly neat worker, and the room really is a little too small for my needs.  

I've holding on to a three year old promise from my dad that we could use some of the spare timber and worktops in his store (urm, I mean conservatory) to build a better working space.  But each time we've been near to deciding a date there's been a reason (family crises, surgery, work loads, apathy...) why we couldn't do it.  And to be be honest it all seemed like too much of an effort.  Then, out of the blue (ha ha) last week Dad phoned and said right, lets do it.  (He was under pressure to return the timber store to it's proper use as a conservatory, can't think why !).  So the mayhem began.

Friday: move essentials to the kitchen table and everything else to the bedroom.  rip out the carpets, take down shelves, sort through files, THROW OUT THINGS.  Yes, you read that right.  I threw out 25 year old under-grad essays for goodness sake !  And endless primary school exercise books of my son's that I had been too sentimental or lazy to do away with before.  Luckily the bin-men come early Saturday morning, or I might have been delving through and rescuing papers entitled things like "The services offered by the voluntary sector are a satisfactory solution to the problem of reduced statutory services.  Discuss".  Friday night, climb over stacks of fabric, files, sewing machines, books, paper, to get into bed.

Saturday:  Start with the painting.  Oh yes, and what a difference that made.  My son took a break from AS revision to cover up the dark blue ceiling.  The time I took last summer to impart to him some decorating skills has definitely paid off.  

The next few days involved applying more and more layers of white in an attempt to finally wipe out the blue. And, of course to actually do some work.  I quite liked working at the kitchen table for a few days, but was looking forward to being back in my proper space.  We finally finished the painting on Tuesday in time for the arrival of the flooring, which my son bravely - having never done anything like it in his life - offered to lay. And a grand job he made of it too.

That done I could start reassembling bookshelves and moving things back in.  On Friday, I left the house in the morning to go to my guitar lesson, and returned at lunchtime to find my dad had been, assembled work tops and left again !  It was almost a pity to move all the junk back into the room.  But it had to be done.  By tea-time everything was settled in.  And what a difference !

Continuous work surfaces - what a revelation !  No gaps for scissors and bits of paper and fabric to fall down. No crevices for pins to get stuck in.  Knee room, storage space, WHITE !  LIGHT !  So here I am on a Sunday, a Sunday I ask you, choosing to work at my desk, because it's so lovely.  I can't promise to keep it this tidy mind you.  

Just a final word on the worktop - the one my sewing machine is on: it came from a science lab at Fortismere School in north London, when they were having a refit back in the 90's.  My dad, who was a teacher there at the time, rescued it from a skip as it is apparently "a quality bit of iroko".  I like to think that some of the scratches and chemical burns might have been made by Fortismere's most famous ex-pupil, Ray Davies, and will probably break out into Kinks' songs every now and then !