Chatterbox Quilts Chitchat

Hi everyone:

I promised that I'd tell you more about our basement renovation and my new studio area. Okay, it was more of a redecoration, but with the amount of work involved, I feel justified in calling it a renovation. 

Pre-renovation. We're in the process
of moving the books and bookcases

Since we purchased our house in 2001 we have redone just about every room, except for the basement. We've replaced windows, repainted, refloored, rebaseboarded (yes, this is a technical term!), everything except touch the basement. Why? Well, if you'd seen all the stuff items in our basement, you would already know the answer! In addition to my studio, the basement contains my husband's office as well as the tv area. This translates into lots of furniture and several bookcases full of many, many, heavy books (ask me how I know this). I own over 300 quilting books myself and then you have to add in my husband's business books to realize that we could be operating our own library! Any changes to the basement would mean lots of heavy lifting and moving everything out - which we did.

Where did everything go?

Books were taken out of bookcases and put into boxes. Boxes and bookcases were carried up to the garage where they were again set up. Furniture was also stored in the garage. Over a day to carry everything up and out. Walls were washed and rinsed. A day and a half to accomplish this. Floors, baseboards and door casings were painted. Baseboards and door casings were pre-cut. 

Bookcases set up in the garage

Then we waited 2 weeks for the floor to be levelled and new flooring installed (don't ask me why there was a delay, I really don't want to be that upset again). Cork plank flooring was installed and then, five days before we left on vacation, we carried everything back down again and attempted to put it all to rights before we left - and we were mostly successful. A few items had to wait until we returned, but isn't there always a few extra things that need to be done at the end of every project?

Studio almost empty

Now my fabric is neatly folded and stored in two new Billy bookcases* (did you know that folded fabric fits perfectly into the deeper Billy bookcase?) and I have an 8 cubby Expedit that holds my dies and business information. All well organized and easy to access. My thread has been organized and arranged in my Alex and I added wheels to the bottom so I can pull it out if necessary. 
*The Billy bookcases that I have aren't shown on their website and are 15" deep.

Cutting table now 2/3 its original size
Top needs to be re-cut and glued back down

My cutting table has been cut down so it is smaller, but still holds a large cutting mat and it is on wheels as well. I've repurposed a long Ikea table for my ironing station and there is extra room to hold WIP's at the end. 

I'm tired just thinking about all the work we did, but it was so worth it! The basement is warmer with the cork floor and easy to keep clean. I love the new wall colour, Litchfield Gray by Benjamin Moore (anything would've been better than the previous stark white) and I am thrilled with my new, better organized space. 

Litchfield Gray by Benjamin Moore

The last decision I have to make is where to hang various pictures and wall art to completely finish off the studio area. I only refer to my area, because... we're still awaiting the installation of two Murphy beds in the tv area, but that's another story :)

Coming up next time: showing off my new studio with organizational tips!