The Studio...aka Living Room

Some of you already know that we have recently moved back to Nashville TN, after living in Knoxville for several years.  While in Knoxville, we were able to afford a 2 bedroom apartment...yes, I had a bead room all to my self!  Well, we tried to use it as a shared craft room for awhile, but with two large crafts, and both of us with the need to creatively sprawl, we were constantly resenting the other person's stuff in our way.  Plus, for some reason Keven doesn't like stepping on stray beads and needles...I don't know why?  So his leather and workbench ended up in the dining area of the living room, and we were both much happier.

Then we moved.  It proved to be quite difficult to find an apartment on (very) short notice, in our price range, with 2 bedrooms.  We ended up having to downsize by about half the square footage, and half of our stuff is now housed in a storage unit.  All of the leather and the big work bench is at the storage unit, but it's working out ok for Keven...we're only 5 minutes from his shop, and he can just bop over there and crank up his music on the weekends if he wants to tool.  My studio is now housed in 3/4 of the living room, and that's what I'm going to talk about today.

So this is where I sit and bead or compute!  I've got natural light from the porch, plus a large task lamp and my brand new OttLite.  The small table on the far side of the bead chaise holds my OttLite, and other small necessities on top, plus boxes of findings, tools, and wire on the shelf below.  In front of the table on the floor (you will have to use your imagination) is a basket that catches other random things I use regularly.  I bead mostly on a bed tray from Ikea, and my computer and other important items reside on the laptop table at the foot of the bead chaise.

On my bead tray right now are an assortment of herringbone ropes - I'm going to be making these for a few days, just stocking up for future projects.

Across from the bead chaise is a crazy mess of storage:

The bookshelf to the left contains all of my bead books and magazines, plus other arts and crafts books.  I'm sure you can see that they've overflowed onto the floor...oh well, I did attempt to clean up!  The boxes next to it contain packing materials and lots of earrings (lower box), plus papers and leather scraps (top box).  I've tucked a folding table (in case I need to cut or sew), and my leather...I just couldn't leave it at the storage unit.  Then comes the bead storage!  It's actually more than it looks like...I hate storing air.  I'm quite fanatical about wasted space in my storage containers.  So everything is stored VERY compactly, and there are a few boxes of things in other areas of the apartment too.  On the top of the storage cubes and hanging on the wall are jewelry displays and my wall art pieces.  And the tv...you can see my bagpipe music playing on Pandora.

If you pan a bit more to the right you come to the end of the bead storage, my clock cabinet, and my whiteboard where I keep track of upcoming challenges and projects, along with other important information.  It just wouldn't do to forget my weekly yoga class!  You can even see the inspiration painting for the October Art Bead Scene blog challenge.

In the past, I've always kept the bead storage close around my bead chaise, but I'm finding that I love being able to sit facing my beads and art - they're a constant inspiration and reminder of what I'm capable of.  It's also good to see the stash, because I often see a box and think about what's in it, and if there's something that I might use on my current project.

I also have a constant companion, my cat Gigi.  We have a bit of a love/hate relationship, as she is quite prickly and I am totally oblivious to the random things I do that annoy her.  But she's always nearby while I'm working.  Either sprawled on the floor, on her scratching post next to the bead chaise, or (like today) hanging out on the porch when the weather is nice.

Thank you for looking!  I'm off to find some breakfast, run to the post office, and get some laundry going while I bead later.  As always you can follow my daily work on my Facebook page, or visit my shop on Etsy.  I'll be back tomorrow with my first blog challenge for October!