Work Space/ "Maker's Space: Seattle"

     Alright, so the chaos of stuff at last is mostly put away.  After months of being separated from my good old desk and piano-bench combo (a Bellingham curbside find which has become my studio standby) my first priority was to set up a workstation in the studio/office room.

     The ways that various people arrange their work space has always fascinated me.  I tend to always set up my space the same way no matter how many times I move: a wall of colorful paintings, posters, and trinkets for inspiration, my funky uneven shelving unit holding an array of art supplies, a magnetic strip to hold my sketches.  
   Some new additions this time around include Pantone boxes, bike gears, and an up-cycled art "frame" (DIY tip after the jump).
     I've been thinking lately about creating a book/photo-essay on the work spaces of various artists, musicians, and crafters in the greater Seattle area.  It's going to be a big project, but the idea of visiting and photographing peoples' studios (particularly in a raw, honest condition)  is really exciting to me.  Toss me an email if you or someone you know would be
 interested in participating (izzybell6@gmail.com).  Think of it as free publicity.  I intend to call it "Maker's Space: Seattle" and would like to have it finished by next fall.

Move in: Round 2

Having all my art crap out of "storage" again is super exciting....the ridiculous amount of space my boxes of art crap took up was less exciting.  Some shots of the carnage:

        Now to organize....gah

Junk Stores and Cool finds

With our rather small budget, we've decided to focus first on our bathroom.  The antique claw-foot bathtub has inspired us to go for a sort of steampunk look.  Our eventual plan is to paint the trim to look like old brass and add some sort of delicate Victorian wallpaper element to the lower section of the walls.  For now we're keeping an eye out for old industrial-looking objects which will later be the detail that ties the theme together.


Our first find comes from the kind of place I generally refer to as a "junk shop"(in a Orwell/1984 reference kind of way).  There are several of these delightfully un-curated stores scattered around Capitol Hill.  Sifting through the shelves and piles of interesting antique objects we found an old (working) army flashlight and some sort of small brass pail whose original use is unknown.  The two objects together cost us less than $10 and had a convincing industrial look once combined.  Toss some tea-lights on the shelves, turn on the flashlight and bam, super nice atmosphere. 

Grims on Capitol Hill

We've been thinking about doing something classy yet industrial with our bathroom, something somewhat "steampunk" without going too crazy.  We recently discovered a newer bar on 11th, "Grims" which is quite possibly my new favorite place ever.  If you live in the Seattle area and are into DIY, you NEED to check this place out: Hanging bare-bulb lighting, re-claimed wrought iron stools, and a bar made from old wooden letter boxes.  They also serve up some really great drinks (try the "Last Word"). It struck a cord with our bathroom plans, so I'm sure we'll be back to....uh...gain further "inspiration".

 

                                                                 

Free Stuff is Great

In the middle of going through what we had moved from downstairs, I managed to find us 3 Ikea bookshelf units on the Craigslist free page.  I can't possibly even count how many times I've lucked out like this.  The shelving units aren't super at all (David suggested that the wife of the nice man who delivered them to us had ordered him to get rid of his crap furniture: "You've had those since college!!") but they work well enough.

We are considering how we can jazz them up...wallpaper? Paint?  We seem to be sort of edging towards a Victorian meets Modern look; elegant old wallpaper could be pretty cool.  At the moment our decor is a little more college student meets antique furniture. Huzah!

Move In: Round 1

We had been sharing a little studio on the first floor when this place opened up.  One glance inside and we were sold.  

We got pretty lucky, with an exposed brick wall that stretches through the living room through double-doors to our office/studio space, classic trim and molding, great sunlight all day through some big old windows.  

We also received an ugly, free, used-to-be-white couch from the last tenants...which we will let stay for a while.The nice thing about "round one" was that we only had to move our stuff upstairs.  "Round two" involves getting all of my art-making supplies and books out of storage.  Storage, in this case, meaning a (somewhat expensive) bedroom I rent that I haven't visited since November.