Friday, November 14, 2008

The Making of a Sewing Studio


After much delay Bill and I are making progress with creating a Sewing Studio for me. This involves the transformation of the largest of the bedrooms in our area of the house. It had a carpet on the floor, but that has been removed and we are now down to the subfloor of plywood.

Exciting right! Well eventually that will be covered with a light wood laminate. But before we can lay that the walls had to be painted. The original walls were a medium color wood paneling. This is a basement room with no windows. At best it is dark and the paneling in the picture makes it even darker.
So the next step was to paint the paneling. We both hate painting. Plus painting over paneling is tricky. It is easy to not get the paint into the grooves or have the paint slid right off the panel, because of it's slick finish. So the first step was to put on a primer that is designed to use on paneling and in areas that could harbor moisture. Believe it or not that went rather quickly. I did the edges and Bill rolled on the rest of the wall. We didn't need to worry about trim, because other then the door trim that is already attached the rest will be added after the floor is in place.
So this is the results of the primer.

We painted this first thing this morning. Just that little bit of light color paint on the walls made a big difference in the room. We have overhead lights in this room, which has two 4 foot fluorescent tubes. The tubes are the soft white, so they don't offer much light. We are going to have Bill's son (He is coming Thanksgiving weekend to help.) add another light the same size plus we will change the tubes so they are the brighter, day light type tubes.

The next step for us today was to paint the walls with the main color. We bought this paint at least two years ago and it is an aqua color. I tried to stir the paint, but I must not have done a good job. When I started to so the trimming at the top of the wall the paint ran like water. I had a new roller, but was using the same brush I had used this morning. I don't think it was completely dry , but I really don't think that was the total problem. I think I just didn't get the paint mixed well. If I do something in the afternoon and things don't go well I get frustrated. I had more paint on the floor and me then on the walls. So I put my paint back in the can and stirred some more. Bill didn't seem to have trouble, but I basically was done for the day. He has his part done, but I still need to paint the top of the wall and the trim around the door. At least I have the whole weekend to get this done as Bill is taking the weekend off. Here is a picture of Bill after he was finished and had come in for being outside. The aqua color don't show up well, but it is a pretty and light color. Perfect for a background for the Sewing Studio.

Keep watching the blog for updates. It will take a long time, because we are also doing the other small room that will become our bedroom. I will be happy if we get it all done and I get the stuff sorted and in place by the end of the year.

Peggy