Showing posts with label studio tour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label studio tour. Show all posts

Monday, December 14, 2015

Workshop Tour


My unassuming workshop means the world to me. It's my space. My office/ studio/ workshop. My workshop was once a very ugly bar area in a rented house that had seen better days. That's how I first saw it, when I came to view our home during the pest and building inspection. My husband and I were both so over looking at houses at that stage. We'd sold our last house and were living with family, I was pregnant with Emerson, and we just wanted to find our new home. But the right home eluded us. We knew where we wanted to live, we knew what we wanted to find, it was just a matter of finding it. We thought we had found it a couple of times, but highway noise and gigantic cracks had put us off a few properties. In the end my husband viewed the house without me, on his way home from work. He put in an offer and signed the paper work before I had even seen it. But I trusted him.

The first time I saw my workshop I was a little in shock. We had wanted a house that was a fixer-upper. But I had not bargained for a home that was full of asbestos and needed a new roof and ceiling. As the building inspector pointed out all the faults, I walked around the weed filled back yard with it's millions of pot holes from a bored staffy, thinking I might cry. Dave was enthusiastic, despite the fact that we couldn't move in until the asbestos had been cleared, carpets removed, floor polished, walls painted and so on and so on.

When we viewed under the house I saw my workshop with it's marine grade carpet, large wooden bar and brick walls. And I saw it's potential. Dave and I argued discussed in the car on the way home as to who had rights to the bar area. Dave saw it as having great man cave potential, and had mentally relegated my tools to the garage. I on the other hand had the financial argument on my side - that my workshop was capable of returning money, while his man cave was not. My husband is a good man, and I got my workshop. 


Many thanks to the lovely Trudi Le Brese for coming and photographing my unassuming, well loved space. 

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Studio Tour

Before
Before
After
After
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A colourful clutter of inspiration and necessities 
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My new Frieda Kahlo doll. A birthday gift from my sister, handmade by Jennie.
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Tools of the trade - My ultrasonic (for cleaning jewellery) is hiding behind the polishing machine, in the middle is my pickle (a heated acid solution that removes flux from heated metals), as well as my rolling mill (for rolling the metal to the desired thickness of plate or bars, or preparing the metal to be drawn down in to wire.)
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One would hardly guess, when looking at the 'before' photo of my bench, that I am usually a 'place for everything and everything in it's place' kind of girl, especially when it comes to my tools. I like to tidy up and put everything away when I've finished working, so that I sit down to a clean bench the next time. Only, it wasn't quite feasible during the rush of market prep. Tidying up seemed like a bit of a luxury. My table became a dumping ground of tools, half finished projects, packaging, and general craziness as I tried to get as much done as possible as time ran out. Working amongst the mess has reaffirmed for me why I tidy up at the end of the day!

Yesterday I pottered around the studio cleaning up and sorting out, while the children played, swept the floor and made more mess. Once I have sorted out their pile of toys on the floor, and the pile of mending on my sewing table, all will be well in my studio again. But at least, for the time being, I can now sit down and work on some custom pieces with room to move and think. And a tidy bench.

What does your work space look like?
Are you neat or messy, or both?
I just noticed that I need to fix the date on my bench clock.

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PS. Happy birthday to my dearest darling twin sister! And happy birthday to me! 32. Oh my! 
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