Last week, I did a Rooftop Cleanup to allow more light and clean the roof of the new studio space. The corrugated plastic has multiple cracks in it, so it will have to be replaced. I did the math and it looks to cost $159 + tax. This week I have worked on cleaning up the area below it. It's amazing how huge the space looks now that all that junk is gone. I really have no idea what I'm doing, but it's really fun to just clean everything up and dream about what I could do.
New problems
When I headed out back today, I noticed two fence panels had toppled back onto the neighbor's land. I think the new fence needs to come sooner than later!
This is the SECOND pile of stuff that had to go.
Everything in the back was water damaged, rusty or just nasty. Except for the cooler, everything is going. There were even two fenders back there from a prior tenant. See those bags of cement? They actually became cement from the rain earlier this month. Lots of rusty nails, rusty screws, PVC pipe, rusty tools, rusty razor blades, gross tape and other weirdness. Good riddance to this stuff!
In cleaning out the back, it made me realize I wanted to trim down my other belongings as well. I have decent-sized collections of records, books and art supplies. This all adds up. Not to mention a couple boxes of childhood toys and mementos. I also had a lot of clothes.
Look at all those empty hangers!
I have been reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo. Her approach is to touch everything you own, rather than just look at it when sorting. She thinks you should focus on what you want to keep, not on what you are getting rid of. Marie's method is different from a lot of approaches because rather than room by room or in small bits, she wants you to go through EVERYTHING and by category, pulling every item within each category. You start with clothes, then books, papers, komono (miscellany - CDs, DVDs, electrical cords, kitchen goods, and on and on) then you move on to sentimental items last. By focusing on clothes first (she calls these the least sentimental), it makes it easier to move through each category. I am not that great at following things exactly, but so far, I have gone through clothes and books and it feels really great.
So clean now!
Anyway, back to the space. Look at it now! So much cleaner than when I started! You can see before photos in the Art Studio Move post. I think I can clear out my studio in two more trips (mostly because of the furniture and large art). I have been thinking about the design of the studio. I want it to be a lean to. I would like the corrugated roof to stay to allow a lot of light in. I also want walls on three sides and a door on one side to enter. This project is going to take some time. I don't expect to be done with it until at least summer. For the time being, I am going to work on the table on the back patio and use the office inside for shipping, photo scanning and editing. The space in back will be for supplies and I can work back there, but I will have to bring art projects on paper inside each day since the overnight moisture in the air will cause the paper to buckle.
I am so into getting rid of all this stuff. I know it will allow me to focus way more on things I want to be doing without all this junk to think about in the back of my mind.
Next steps:
- Move my art desk, shelf, chairs and large artworks back from the studio (still need to sort through)
- Organize art supplies on shelf
- Hang pegboard for tools
- Purchase a flat file
- Talk to the neighbors about their invasive trees and vines (that are ruining the fence)
- Level the foundation (there's a giant root under one of the concrete panels)
- Replace the corrugated roof