Photos of the new studio!

These are the before and after photos of the new studio. My art group met there yesterday and I fully intended to get photos of everyone working, but I was so excited I forgot to! We obviously have lots more to do, and we're not doing anything to the individual studios (we'll let the artists do their own spaces) but at least it's useable space now.

We've gone from this...

To this, in just under 2 weeks...

This is our studio "suite" before ...

And after...

Our HUGE classroom/workroom space...

The kitchen/community area...

We've done everything from painting to laying now plywood on the floors to installing 26' of counters in the studio, not to mention all the general cleaning up and moving stuff around.

In addition to the the 4 studio spaces inside, we also have a greenhouse, storage shed, pool and 2 bedroom guest house, all on a double lot with a creek along the back property line.

Our next order of business is to get the rest of the shelves and bookcases and storage stuff put up and arranged and then get all of our supplies sorted and stored. We will be moving the last of our stuff from the old studio at the MS Craft Center this week, and then we'll be diving into the organization at the new studio. It's a pain that the fully-loaded shelf units from the other studio are the last things to be moved but the first things needed at the new studio.

There is no way to describe how excited we are to have the new space! Based on our limited use so far, we think it will be perfect for our needs. Ultimately, we'll have 3 other artists in the studios, and the workroom will be available for other artists to rent for classes. Judging by our art meeting yesterday, the space can easily accomodate a dozen people working on projects.

We have a studio!!!

Closing papers were signed and keys were handed over on Aug 29 for the new studio space! It is unbelievably perfect for what we want to do with it too. Anne and I will share a large studio and storage room at one end of the house, and there are 3 other studios at the other end, with a HUGE classroom, kitchen and den in between. Our first "event" is going to be tomorrow when my art group meets for the day in the classroom. We've been working ourselves silly getting it ready and have made great progress on it. Today is reserved for just small details and cleaning up to get ready for tomorrow. The location is perfect, plenty of parking, plenty of room, large double lot, fenced, a pool, a deck, tons of windows and good light. There's not a single thing I would change about it.

So far, we've installed 26" of counter space in our studio, painted, added shelves, paint racks and power strips, and started sorting and storing all our supplies. Much, MUCH more to go, but at least we can get in there to work. We laid sheets of flooring in the den and then floated out the kitchen, den and entry floors before painting the whole thing lime green. Yes, an unbroken 40' expanse of bright lime green floor! The area looks huge now, even with furniture in it.

We took 3 full-sized louvered bi-fold doors and painted them orange, teal and lime, then mounted 2'x3' black numbers on them for the address. The shutters will be lime by the end of the day, and the back door will be orange. The 4'x5' crawfish painting is hung, the 2 fluorescent shop lights and 2 industrial wall fixtures are up in the classroom and the 4'x8' table is ready to go. The wall of dry erase board will go up today, as will the chalk board.

We're not sure what the floor in the classroom is going to look like, but we're leaning towards painted foot prints. It's bottom of the line laminate that was badly installed so we're not ruining anything nice if we paint over it. And we LOVE color. The more the better. The hot pink sewing cabinet we're using for a table by the back door looks great against the lime floor.

Even as excited as I am now, I think I'll be more excited next week when my time again becomes my own and I can get in there and sort and store and actually start working on real art again! I did get a bunch of before pictures, but of course my camera is someplace else, so those will have to wait. I'm also getting "during" phoros and will take "after" photos too, if we ever actually finish. I'll try to get some of the pictures up later this evening or tomorrow.

We are officially "Bottle Tree Studios" and will eventually have a facebook page and website, but for now, the really cool bottle tree in the front yard of the studio, and the 2 hanging bottle trees on the porch will have to do.