I'm usually over on the building a home forum and stopped by to see all the pretties. I'm so glad I did! I'm getting my very own "play room" at the new house and desperately need some inspiration. :o) I already packed up most of the current sewing room, so it looks a little bare in here. Please ignore the packing boxes stashed under the table and the chairs. Sorry! The shelves above the table are two brackets with a regular shelf on top. I put the little plastic pieces for curtain rods inside and inserted a wooden dowel. These have worked great for hanging the fabrics and trims for upcoming projects. The shelves on top make nice spaces for displaying goodies...which I have already packed. LOL Under the table there are usually clear rolling totes with 3 drawers each. I keep my things for handwork in them. They are great for taking in the other room so I can watch TV while stitching. :o) The cutting table folds and is tucked out of the way against the wall. On the opposite wall there is a bank of cabinets for keeping fabrics and trims. The framed fabric above the shelf was great for to-do lists and notes on projects.

I have thoroughly enjoyed browsing all the photos and reading the stories of your collections here. Such beautiful pieces and wonderful, touching stories. To see most of mine, you'd think my home was full of antiques, which is far from the real deal, but these seem to be most of my most interesting non-art things. However, some of you have given me some ideas for things I could do in the future with things I have stored! This is a small collection of silver vases, albeit in need of some polish right now. My collection of miniature tea sets. This started with my aunt giving me her much-used Mickey Mouse set she had used back in the 30's as a child and a then-new set when I was about 8-years old (the blue and white delft set). The rest is a mix of old and new I picked up along the way as an adult. I also have a lot of old hankies that belonged to my grandmother and great-grandmother, and yes I use them at weddings and funerals. They made some of them, including the tatting on the edges. Gallery hallway of family photos (old and new) To honor our home states (Alabama and Ohio) I started looking for old maps of our states and regions. This is one of Alabama and of the Eastern US in our breakfast room. The next one is an Agricultural map of Ohio. I think I've posted enough. Thanks for viewing. BTW, those clocks are awesome! And I adore that mirror, and I can't say enough about that belly cast!

CPArtist, care to elaborate? This is the second studio I've designed. The first was in the condo and I wound up learning from my mistakes in that one. I am so looking forward to this one. What specific mistakes did you rectify this time around, or are they already explained above? (You might save others, er...me, some grief.) Happy to oblige. My last studio was the third bedroom in our condo. I had a wonderful closet to keep supplies in, but no place to store boxes or finished artwork, so it all wound up stacked up behind the sleeper sofa. (BTW the sleeper sofa will be on the north wall under the window in my new condo but won't have boxes or artwork stacked behind it.) One new closet has shelves built vertically to store artwork and boxes. And the other closet will actually have pull out drawers so I can store more in it. If you look at the photo, my easel was to the left of my desk chair so I could stand at my easel and reach for a pencil. The problem was the computer screen was lower so if I needed to look at a detail (I work from my own photos and from life combined) in my photo, it meant bending over to see the screen. In the new studio, the desk is 36" high which will put my computer screen at eye level when I'm standing at my easel. My pencils were always in a pile on top of the desk since there was no place to "store them". That meant many times I'd spend time searching for the color I need, even when it was right in front of me. LOL. The new desk has that wonderful drawer with 20 pencil compartments so I can store pencils by color and brand. There was no place to store my paper which was large sheets. so they wound up on top of the bench under the table, with the ends flopping over the edge. In the new studio between the two closets will be a paper storage cabinet. This will also allow me to store mats and finished art that isn't framed. The top was also glass on top of wood so it was always full of fingerprints and pencils had a habit of falling off. Because of the desk drawer, I don't have to worry about pencils falling off and the top is oak wood. The desk was not deep enough. It was if I recall about 25" deep, so I never felt like I had enough room to spread out. The new desk is 36" wide. I had no place but the dining room table to sort paper or frame drawings. Now my desk will allow me the room to do that. In the old setup the printer was on my desk as there was no other space. In the new studio, the printer will be in the closet or on the top of the paper storage bin. I didn't have great lighting so it was impossible to work once the sun went down. In the new studio, I have 8 high hats with LED lighting as well as a ceiling fan with LED lighting so I will have enough light to work at night if I'm trying to finish up a drawing. Additionally, with windows on both the north and south walls, I have bright daylight all day long. And just a personal thing. At times I just would go on the computer and the tv wasn't conducive to watching at my desk. In the new studio, my tv won't be conducive to watching while I'm drawing, but I never watch when drawing. I will listen though. However if I'm at the computer in my new studio, I'll be able to see the computer straight ahead. Lastly, I work standing up, so I designed the desk to be counter height. It will be easy for me to stand up from my chair to start drawing or sit down if I need to. One thing I'd say if you're setting up an art room or a craft room is to really figure out how you work and what you absolutely need. Where do you need to keep your materials while you're working? In front of you? To the left? The right? Where do you keep materials that aren't needed immediately? How do you work? Do you prefer sitting at a desk? Sitting at an easel? Standing up? Do you like listening to music? TV?

Pictures in my living room. They're really dusty because my daughter's furniture is crammed in there still.Awful photo but the room has glaring light from my grow shelf in there. It's a picture taken by Casey in Newfoundland...who is no longer posting here, sadly. She gave me permission to download it and a couple others off her website and then I printed them out. Some were smaller prints that I put in my main bathroom and this one is in the smaller spare bedroom.Other side of the same room. I had the signed F-16 print I received from my AMU's pilots and maintenance crew when I left the Air Force, framed. Print bought in 1990 in Strasbourg France...I think my daughter left the Taiwanese money my exchange student gave us for New Year's luck...just found it when I went in there to take this picture because I haven't been in this room for a while either...it's full of my son's stuff. Print of my favorite German Castle. Bought sometime in the late 80s.