Enter the room of doom and dread ... if you dare ...

Let's take a tour of my soon-to-be changing studio.  As you may remember, this is the room that took nearly 2 years for a general contractor to complete.  This is the room that needed several "fixes" once we fired said general contractor.  Did I mention that it took nearly 2 years to build, and the room is only 12' x 10'??

Upon entering the room, if you were to walk with me, you would notice that there's a slight slope to the floor when you walk in.  This is because the floor in the studio is not level with the rest of the house.  Lovely, yes?

If you look to the left, you will see my ugly storage cabinets.  And my even uglier wire shelving unit.  I have been using the cabinets to store fabric for quilting ... no, I will not open them and show you.  It will make your eyes hurt.  See that lovely mannequin head on top of the smaller cabinet?  You may remember her from an earlier post.  No, I do not usually decorate my living spaces with gaudy heads.  Let's move along, shall we?

To the right, you'll notice that there are 2 sets of doors here.  The doors that are leaning against the other set were once installed between the bedroom and the studio.  I felt that removing them opened up the room a lot more - making it feel bigger and brighter.  The doors are listed on Craigslist for a deal if you're interested.  If I found out that the buyer was a blog reader, they'd get a hell of a deal!  (wink wink) ...

Anyway, the doors that give us access to the outside are actually not the original doors that were installed.  The original set of doors were not properly installed.  This caused leaking into the house, which also caused leaking onto the flooring.  See the ripped up flooring near the door?  Yeah, apparently he didn't install a moisture barrier between the concrete and the laminate flooring.  So, I have a lovely patch of concrete there that I've been looking at for about a year.  Isn't it pretty?

And finally, let's turn our eyes to the sky ... or should I say the skylight covered in foil.  When I had it uncovered, the natural light in here was amazing ... gorgeous even.  Until you walked into the room, then you felt like your skin was on fire.  I was assured that the glass (or plastic, whatever it's made of), was tinted and would be energy efficient because it was also covered with something called Low-E film.  What I've discovered from living here is that, tinted or not, this room BAKES in the summer!  So, the foil was put in place over this past summer.  I don't know what to do ... do I replace it?  Do I have it uninstalled and just have the hole plugged up??  Ideas ... anyone??

Oh, and let's not forget to take a closer look at the texture of the walls and the ceiling.  You see, in the rest of my house I have a very pretty texture called "spanish lace" on the ceiling and "orange peel" texture on the walls.  In the studio however, I was given something called - "looks like a child threw oatmeal at the walls" texture on the walls ... and "didn't give a crap not even going to try" texture on the ceiling.  Here's some pictures that show you what I'm talking about.

So ... my game plan is this ... next Saturday, a fine gentleman is going to remove the laminate flooring in here.  He's getting a great deal on it - it's free - he just has to do all of the labor.  I estimate that there's about 10' x 10' of good laminate in here that he'll be able to use.  Once those are removed, there's another fine gentleman coming in to try and match the texture on the walls and on the ceiling to the rest of the house.  From what I have been told, this is not an easy task (the matching) and I'm hoping for the best here.  I will be sure to post photos of the progress of the room as it transforms.

Once the walls and ceiling textures have been established, the next task is leveling the floor and installing tile.  I figured that tile would be more "sewing room friendly" as I can use the grout lines as a grid of sorts when I'm making quilts.  It'll also hold the heat / cold better than the laminate was, because I do intend to figure out SOMETHING to do with that gosh darn skylight.

And thanks to Ana and her fabulous blog that I can't talk enough about ... I intend to build a few Cameron storage systems in here for fabric storage, a bench seat that is the length of the window (I don't think I showed you the window, it's just a window anyway - you're not missing anything), and eventually try and tackle building a Bedford Project table similar to what Pottery Barn wants to charge an arm and a leg for.  Again ... all with pictures of the progress.

I'm guessing that this project is going to take a while to complete, but I'm also guessing that it won't take nearly 2 years.  Take that Mr. lame general contractor!  (And if you want to see any of the pictures bigger, just click on them ... but be forewarned, I can't be responsible for the hideous-ness of what you see)!