A Studio Makeover!

In the beginning, there were plain white walls and a lonely art table.  Propped in the window was a red envelope holding schematics for organization and ergonomics.  The nearly empty room, with a single solar tube in the ceiling glowing with sunlight, spoke of unlimited potential - it whispered "this room can become anything you wish."

And so I closed my eyes and wished for a magical space filled with good mojo, creative freedom and love.

Before we go any further...let's remember where this all started five months ago...here are the "before" pictures:

sad, sad studio

inefficient storage

After my initial consultation with Danielle at GetNEAT, I was given homework: sort and purge all of my supplies, remove everything from the room and paint the walls.  So I did.  Now back to our story....
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When installer Mark arrived in the morning, all cheery and bright, there were piles of art and art supplies strewn throughout the house.  Homeless tools, paints and paper, looking quite pitiful and generally making my house look like Jerry's Artarama gone wild.
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I knew from Mark's tidy tool bag and neatly stacked shelving that he was from the merry band of organization elves I'd been dreaming of.  Drop cloth placed on my tile floor, he began installing the upright supports and cutting pieces to fit perfectly in the room. ​

Mark, hard at work!

Mark was finished with the entire job in just a few hours.  It was time to move in all the art supplies and art.  GetNEAT owner Danielle had given me a great diagram for what went where, along with several ergonomic options for the tools I use most.  

Everything was so well planned in advance, it really didn't take long for me to put everything in exactly the right place.  I could not believe how everything fit perfectly in the room, with loads of space to spare!  Good planning and extreme attention to detail made this a breeze.

It turns out Mark had a family member who was a stone-carving artist.  He said building my studio space reminded him of her work (she recently passed) and he could appreciate the need for an organized creative space.  Yay Mark!

I decided to have my shipping and inventory closet re-vamped while we were at it.  It is a small space, but one that had the potential to be super efficient if properly configured.  It was installed in 30 minutes!

new shelving system in the shipping closet

Let's take a look at the things I love - those rolling carts underneath the counter are filled with wrapped paintings.  So easy to move them out, sort through them and roll them back into place.  The counter is perfect for pieces in process, and there is a little metal bar across the back which is fun for hanging inspiration images and things I need to quickly grab.

wall space and storage space

There is a magnetic board over my work table which holds all my tools and some inspirational bits.  This is extra cool because I can reconfigure it a hundred different ways, so it is flexible as my needs change.

Shelf baskets keep things contained

I've got two walls for hanging oversized art, and plenty of shelves with nifty built in book ends to store all of my visual journals, supplies, inspiration and instruction books and what-nots.

I love this magnetic board!

On the right side of my desk are "shelf baskets", which are ideal for storing my paints, glazes and glues, along with miscellaneous supplies.  They are now neatly corralled in the baskets, and I can just reach over and grab them as I need to. 

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​The shipping and inventory closet worked out beautifully, too.  Everything stored upright with shelf separators to keep things tidy and translucent liners to keep things from falling through.  There is another magnetic board for the stuff I want to grab quickly.

I was able to fit twice the amount of stuff in this closet once it was reconfigured.  Incredible!  And yet I can see and grab everything easily.  What a difference the right organization system makes.


And now the complete "after photo (below):

shipping bliss!

ta-daaaa!

I cannot wait to get back to work in my revamped space, which feels three times as large since the renovation.  There is room to grow and space to breathe with everything light and bright and cheery.  I got my wish today!

Ever so grateful to Danielle at GetNEAT (check out her amazing services here).   We used her NEAT Office service for this makeover, and spent a lot of time thinking about what worked, what didn't work in the space and what needed to happen for it to feel just right.  It was MUCH easier than I expected, so now I am looking at my bookkeeping and saying hmmmm...maybe NEAT Books is next?