The better part of September has been spent down in my basement, cleaning up my studio. I’ve had a fairly busy Summer with no breaks between jobs, so things had really gotten out of hand. I decided it was a good time to organize and toss, toss, toss, since I was in desperate need of some space and order! Now don’t worry, I’m not kidding myself thinking that my studio is ever going to grace the pages of any magazine featuring a before/after spread. It is what it is and it works for me.
As the days progressed, my studio looked worse and worse!
First I started with my 2 oz. craft bottles of paints. Why do I save these dried up bottles???? They are not usable and are taking up a lot of space. I tossed. I organized by color and retaped some boxes that were falling apart.
Next, I tackled my quarts and gallons of paint. Many cans with an inch or two of dried paint in the bottom. Tossed.
I also threw out almost all of my containers of glazes left over from miscellaneous jobs. I had shelves of these that I rarely use again, and if needed, I’ll recreate (famous last words, gulp).
My basement occasionally gets a little wet. Ok…. frequently gets wet, so as my aging particleboard shelving disintegrates, I am replacing with plastic, utility shelving. I ran over to Home Depot and bought a new unit to replace one sad, sagging shelf unit.
Now my biggest problem was how the heck to get rid of all of the ancient oil based products I no longer use. Watertown has a not so very convenient system where I will have to visit the Town Hall for a form and a sticker and then drive two towns away on a specific Saturday in October to dispose of all of this. I guess that is my punishment for having used oil based products.
When it comes to tossing, weeding out my stencils, I just don’t know what to do. Will large urns ever come back in style? If so, I have about 10 different urn stencils. You never know… I did toss some stencils that clearly should not be used again because they are so heavy with paint and cut up. Why, why do I save things like this? They are not even good for sample making. For now, I decided to just reorganize them and get a few more new racks. Of course, I needed to make some room for these new racks, which was no small task.
The last area to weed out was my very old collection of sample boards. I’m talking old. Finishes no one does anymore, color combinations that make me cringe, etc. I salvaged some boards to paint over and reuse, but most were not in good shape, textured, etc., so they filled my recycle bin.
It’s still a dungeon down here, but at least now it is a well organized dungeon!
Looks great. Can you help me reorganize my basement when you come visit next Fall?
Excellent job, sis!
Great job, Madre!