Art Studio

When we purchased our four-bedroom home in July 1999, we still had three children living at home.

But just a month later, our oldest son went off to college and only returned during Christmas and summer breaks.

Then just a year later, our daughter also went off to college again only to return for the same breaks.

After finishing college, our two oldest also entered graduate school and effectively never lived at home again.  Sometime during this time, our youngest son took over our daughter’s bedroom, moving himself from the smallest second floor bedroom to the largest.  Once he too went off to college and moved out permanently, we essentially had three bedrooms to use as we pleased.

I moved a table into our oldest son’s bedroom and set up my computer there which basically became my workspace at home.

In our youngest son’s original bedroom, affectionally referred to as the “skinny grey room,” we first turned it into a craft room for my wife.

But once we started having grandchildren, we turned it into a room for our grandchildren to have sleepovers with first a baby bed, and then a twin bed for older grandchildren along with lots of toys.

And our daughter’s room, after a makeover in 2008, became our guest bedroom.

But having lost her craft room with the arrival of grandchildren, my wife longed for some creative space of her own in this house.

Sometime afterwards, we moved a long table into the bedroom so my wife would have space to paint and sew, but it was shared space as the room still had all of the bedroom furniture in it.

Finally in November of 2023, after numerous conversations about how she really wanted more space to be creative, we decided to turn this bedroom into her art studio.  Making it a dedicated studio would necessitate moving all of the bedroom furniture out.  But where it would it go?

This bedroom furniture is some really nice Drexel furniture that my father-in-law helped us purchase at a discount when he was a furniture buyer/representative.  I really did not want to get rid of it as it provides for very comfortable accommodations for our overnight guests.  After some additional discussions, we decided what made the most sense was to give the grandchildren furniture to our youngest son in town as he would have a greater need for it.  But with the skinny grey room being the smallest of the three upstairs bedrooms, I felt like this large furniture would look too squeezed into the room.

So, now we were looking at a domino effect of moving this furniture into the orange room and moving that furniture (and my workspace) into the skinny grey room.

Before moving anything, I decided to draw up a scale drawing of the two rooms and the furniture to make sure everything would fit.

I played with these a little to figure out the best floor plan.  In the skinny grey room, I discovered I even had room for my car cabinet that had been in the playroom.  I was pleased to once again have my 1/18 scale cars in my work office like I had when I worked full time.

On the first Saturday in November, we began the move.  First was to move all the furniture out of the skinny grey room and then move the furniture from the orange room into there.  Everything fit just like my scale drawing showed.

In the orange room, once I had the furniture in place, it looked like the bed stuck out too far into the room.  So, I made a field adjustment and moved the Queen Anne’s desk from in front of the window to where I used to have my worktable.  Moving the bed over towards the wall to make room for the desk eliminated the problem.  Interesting how things look different sometimes in 2-dimensional scale drawings versus 3-dimensional full-size furnishings.

With both rooms finished, this then left my wife with a pretty clean palette upon which to create her studio.

Four months, later, I would say it is still a work in progress.

My wife has moved her weights and yoga props from a downstairs closet into the room, and she has gotten out more of her painting supplies.  She has also suggested I add a yoga rope wall but knowing this would have to be removed and the wall damage repaired when we go to sell the house, I have been hesitant up until now to make this addition.  But even without this rope wall, my wife has been making good use of the room.

On any occasion, I may find my wife in this room pursuing her artistic release.  She may be sitting at the table painting or drawing or sitting in the red upholstered chair knitting.  I may also walk in and find her doing a handstand or a shoulder stand.

Since I “semi-retired” in 2017, I have spent a lot more time upstairs when I am home, so it is nice that she is upstairs more as well.  Now I can just walk down the hall from either the skinny grey room or the playroom and look in on her to see what she is up to.  I suspect in the future, there will be more additions in this room to make it even more useable for my wife.

For as many artists know, sometimes you just never know when a work of art is truly finished.