Saturday, December 01, 2007

New Studio Space

I am married to a musician. His day gig is working as a creative director for a creative marketing agency which does a lot of work on the internet. He writes music all day long. Then he comes home, greets our girls and sits down at the piano and plays more music.

It's great to be married to a creative guy. He gets it. He understands when I am fixated on something and cannot get it out of my head. He understands my need to stay up all night and finish. He understands the need to have the right tools for the job. He understands my need for the right space to work in.

He understands enough to give up the 15 x 15 foot room off my old studio. This room held the baby grand piano he plays every night when he comes home. A few weeks ago we began the process of finding a new space for the piano. No small task. It's huge. And heavy. Moving it means you have to know exactly where you want it to go. It's not like shoving a couch around a room until you've found just the right spot. So off I went with my graph paper and a tape measure and figured out where the piano could go.

This was not an easy decision. You have to take all kinds of things into consideration. Like where the floor joists are, where doors to the outside are, how close to a fire place and how many important football games are on television (which will prevent any friends and/or neighbors form helping you). After considering the possibilities, we settled on the family room. Joel and I hauled the piano across the house to its new home. It's the perfect place for it. You can sit and play the piano and look out the window. I think it is very happy there.
Here's Joel trying to move the piano by himself.

And moving that piano left a big hole in the corner of that 15 x 15 foot room which I think the builder considered the formal living room. Our house was built in the mid 80's and is a formal layout with the formal dining and living areas separate from the family room. I previously had my studio in the formal dining room space.

So now I've branched out and am in the formal living room as well. I have two big rooms. One for storage and "messy" work. And the new larger room for my sewing machines, drawing table and computer space.

New studio space.

Old studio space.

While cleaning and sorting through piles I found all kinds of drawings and notes on projects I'd like to do. I had to stop working on the studio space last night to flush out one of those ideas. I would show it, but you know Christmas is right around the corner and the recipient is a reader of this blog and I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise!

It is amazing how much stuff I have. I did sort through and get rid of a tremendous amount of junk, but so much of the things I hang on to are relevant to what I do and want to do.

Tonight is Saturday night so my hubby will be playing some rock and roll on his weekend gig. It inspires him throughout the week when he's working his corporate gig.

Me? I'm back to the studio to sort through more stuff and work on that Christmas project.

3 comments:

Jules said...

Hey, can we go listen to Joel play some weekend? I would love to hear him play. Love the new studio space.

Rach said...

Wow, how fantastic to have so much space for your studio! I'm envious!

Sharon Serrano Ahmed said...

The space looks wonderful!
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