Unfortunately the majority of these items are not available online and the closest Ikea stores are each about 3 hours away — one near Detroit, one near Chicago. Oh well, a girl can dream every once in a while I guess.

This little nook, which is adjacent to the space we had been using as our office, is about 8 foot square and was being used as a storage area. I had temporarily set up my art room in an area next to the office space, thinking I would eventually be moving that back upstairs once I transformed the spare bedroom upstairs into a bright and beautiful new art space. But the plan for the spare bedroom upstairs changed as we decided the room would be better used as a walk-in closet since we are drowning in clothes and shoes that have no home. So it looks like my art room is remaining in the basement. This is a little disappointing as the upstairs room has a beautiful hardwood floor and double windows — it would have been a bright and sunny workspace. Although the downstairs space has only one small basement window, it is larger and I have more flexibility in arranging things as there are not large windows to deal with. The basement location is also convenient as it is next to our office, making for easy access without an additional computer and printer.

As I was contemplating the area where my art stuff temporarily resided (which was becoming rather cramped), it occurred to me that if I were to swap the office space and the art space, I would be able to clean out the little nook and claim it as additional art room space. So over the past couple of weekends, I’ve been slowly shifting things around… it’s kind of a merry-go-round process — move one thing and then move something into that space so you can move the first stuff into that space… I cleaned out the little storage nook (why on earth I was saving boxes and boxes of empty boxes and stacks and stacks of old magazines is beyond me, but they are now off to be recycled). I cleared out the temporary art space, stacking all my stuff in the family room. I then moved all of the office furniture and computers over to the space that had been the art room (what a mess of gadgets and cables that was). Once the little storage nook and the old office area were emptied out, it was glaringly obvious that the walls were not all the same color. Not only was there this ugly green felt panel wall in the little nook, but the side wall had recently been painted an eggshell color along with the rest of the basement and the back wall had not been painted, rather was a hideous pepto-bismal pink color. So I painted the pink wall to match the rest of the walls… and then I painted the ceiling because it looked rather grungey once the walls were all freshly painted.

At that point, I was nearly ready to move in. I had made a scale diagram of the space on my computer and had been moving furniture and storage pieces around to find the optimum arrangement. The nook space was to be used for my workbench area — the place for hand tools and the drill press and the book press, etc. The more I contemplated the design, the more I knew I would not be able to live with the ugly green felt wall in the nook. I considered drywall, and then it occurred to me that pegboard would be much more functional in the work space, not to mention much easier to install.

The workbench will sit along the radiator wall. Randy snagged me two slotted mail sorter units from the tag sale at work, which he is going to wall mount above the workbench. This is the next step in the process. After that the workbench can be moved in and the rest of the room arranged. The end is finally in sight, which is good because having all the stuff sitting in the family room is really stressing out my need for everything to be orderly, not to mention I have deadlines looming and cannot find half of my stuff.

{ Dress Your Books… }

{ Dress Your Journals… }

Speaking of books, I sorted through 4 totes of books last night that I’ve picked up mostly at thrift stores over the past few years for the purpose of altering or using as material in the altering process. I knew there were more books than I would have space for (even though I have lots of space in my spacious new space) and before I even lifted the lid on the first tote I vowed to sort with resolve and whittle the pile down to what would comfortably fit on the shelves allocated to this purpose. Yeh, right… I parted with about a dozen books that really have no hope for future use, but everything else… well I have this great sense of vision and I can always *see* the potential use for something. This visualization process evidently creates some kind of emotional bond because from that point on I feel a sense of nurturing, making it a near crime to part with it. So my shelves overflow with haphazardly stacked books which is creating a little emotional conflict because I have this need for them to be all neat and tidy. I’m wondering if I could possibly fit in a few more of those shelving units…

{ Make Your Own… }

{ I’m seriously coveting this table… }

But congrats to Ryan Newman who crossed the finish line first. Now who would have guessed that would ever happen?

{ Grumpy Old Crow }

{ Grand Haven Sunset }

Oh, and true to form, I waited until the last minute and was up into the wee hours to get these out in time. Some things never change…

{ Sing }

I’m thinking this might be first in a series, with February and March being *love* and *dance.* We’ll see…