In case you didn't know it, we recently brought a building onto the land near the house and it will soon become my new sewing studio. Joel and I have been busy working on projects in the studio in between taking care of the pigs and chickens and putting the garden to bed for the winter. For a girl who likes to feel productive, the farm life certainly lives up to the popular saying that the work on a farm is never done. And yes, I love all that we accomplish every week.
As for the studio, it began life as an empty shell of a building....one that was completely finished on the outside, but the inside was void of anything but rafters and stud walls. Over the last month we've had a combination A/C and heat unit installed for climate control. Whew! Just in time, too, before the snow started blowing and the temps dropped into the 30's.
It's an energy efficient Mitsubishi unit that will climate control both the studio
and the old sewing porch. That's going to be a bonus for us this winter, especially for me as my computer and desk are going to remain out on the sewing porch and I was a little cold out there last winter.
Because the workers were back and forth installing the units in the sewing porch and the studio we had to close the door to the kitchen in order to keep the dogs corralled. They just kept watching out the long window of the door to keep an eye on all the activities.
Meanwhile, outside the install went great and is neat and tidy. The area between the new studio and the farmhouse will soon be attached with an enclosed breezeway so I can pad out to the studio in the morning in my jammies without having to go outside. Woo-hoo! Since I am in there at all hours of the day and night it just made sense for us to connect it to the house. I'm not exactly sure when that is going to get done, though. Ummmm, yeah, just another "little" project.
Next came the dry wall guys. It took them the better part of a week to dry wall, mud the seams, let the mud dry and sand and repeat until the walls were nice and smooth. So glad they did it and not us!
Then it was my turn.....to paint, that is. I decided to paint the whole studio the same color as the kitchen and laundry room. I love this soft robin's egg/Tiffany box blue. It's a cheerful color and makes me happy just to look at it.
And here you can see how small the inside A/C unit is as it is tucked up high on one wall. It has worked great while we are in there working over the last 2 weeks during the ups and downs in the temperature outside. I'm so grateful to have climate control where I plan on spending a lot of hours each week.
It is taking me 2 weeks, but I have been really busy painting the tongue and groove ceiling boards for the huge main room of the studio. The small back room that is for storage has a drywall ceiling, so, that is already painted and ready for flooring. I can only paint so many boards at one time as there simply is not enough space to lay out wet 8' boards....I'm currently using 2 sawhorses and a 6' folding table. As soon as they are dry, Joel and I are installing them on the ceiling as well as putting thick insulation up above the boards, and then I paint more boards and the whole process begins anew.
This is how far we got yesterday. At least we are more than halfway and feel like we have a "system" going now. It takes more time when we get to the ceiling lights and I have to stop and draw circles on the boards and cut them out with the jigsaw, hoping to line up the arc cuts on the boards with the lights. I was teasing Joel yesterday that it's a good thing I'm a quilter and love geometry because the skills from both have come in handy while making these cuts on the boards.
It's going to take us a considerable amount of time to complete this mammoth project, but it's going to give us much needed additional storage in the back room and also give me a real place to do my sewing....hopefully to blossom into a business once again. More on that in the year to come. Then wait till you see what we have planned for the old sewing porch.
Thanks for checking on us,
Debbie
