My studio redo is almost complete. A few things left in one corner to be moved to as yet unknown new homes. Now almost all of my work areas are contained in one space that they are sharing with our newly acquired work out equipment. Somehow the organizing gene that both my sisters seem to have inherited missed my DNA. I like to work in a clean and organized space I just detest the organizing part of it, I seem to lack the vision they have for where everything should go when it's all said and done.
I even went so far as to reorganize my bead drawers and glass supplies. Amazing the things you find when you do a total haul out. I have to say though, that for two days my house looked like a scene from that show "Clean House", except in my case the clutter was taking up two more rooms of my house rather than neatly piled in the front yard. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that between 3 rooms of reorganization I had six bags of garbage to go to the curb and a couple of boxes worth of donations (not quite a scene from "Hoarders" but scary enough).
It is a joy to work in this space now. The only thing I am lacking is a table small enough to fit in the space but sturdy enough to hammer on. Perhaps I need to do some bartering with the local bro in law to get him to build me something suitable. For some of you this may seem a crowded space to work in, but for me I kind of "cocoon" and have tunnel vision when I work so the space doesn't feel at all claustrophobic to me.
The Beading and Assembly Station used to be housed in my living room, but has replaced the torching station at this window. I like the view out this window and look up far more often from assembly than i do torching so this made sense to me. All the drawers house beads, wire, stringing, components etc. I have amassed a much larger stash than I had realized and other than sheet metal should not need to make any purchases for quite some time. I know the work surface is a little untidy, but I was in the midst of projects when the sun came out enough to get photos. Oh, and the WiiU sits there too, it belongs to my son but he lets me use it to stream Netflix while I create and workout. I can also access Youtube from there if I need a video refresher on bead weaves.
The Torching Station is now located at the other window that looks out on our front porch and the street, not a great view but as I mentioned before I don't get to look up much while torching. I need to make better use of the file drawers beneath it but have found if I put things in there I tend to forget about them. To the right of this station there is a book shelf that houses some books as well as my growing collection of enamels. For those of you worried about my safety with that curtain you can see on the right, rest assured it is securely tied well out of the way before the torch is lit. Soon the curtain will come down all together and be replaced by a safer more out of the way mini blind. The glass stash on the right is all from Devardi glass, love working with it, great prices and awesome colors. The best part about Devardi though is how kind and helpful Natasha is, any questions I have are usually answered within the hour.
You may have wondered about these little contraptions on the right hand side of the torching station. The rod warmer heats rods up to a toasty 850 degrees and so far eliminates any shocking even with picky colors, they go right from the warmer directly to the flame to begin melting. No more waving the glass in and out of the flame to warm it before working and no more shocking, YAY! The mini bead annealer is the beginners budget kiln. The only draw back is it's size, you can't cram too many mandrels in there at a time and there is no place for headpins and such to lay as they will stick to the floor. It is however very serviceable until I can bump up to a larger kiln and will probably still use it at that time to garage pieces in the works and smaller beads for annealing. Both of these little lovelies are available at
Devardi. (ps follow the link and enter to win their monthly giveaway of 10lbs of glass, if you win and don't want it I'd be happy to adopt it from you :) ).
Hope you have great plans for a relaxing weekend. Tomorrow I get to spend quality time with my oldest moving her into her new apartment.
