Where I create

Its the time of the annual "Where Bloggers Create" party again, cant believe it has been a whole year already since the last party.  Time sure has gone by fast and so much has changed, so when I saw that Karen Valentine of "My Desert Cottage" is hosting again this blog party of creative spaces, I just had to sign up {this is my third year to take part}.  I looked forward to this, but this year I kind of gave my self a bit of short dead line to get ready for this {I will explain as I go here}

So before I show you my new studio space, I just wanted to show you parts from my old studio space {just in case you haven't seen it}.  It was a good space size wise, but for me as a painter it was lacking a few things.  Real walls and a good source of natural light, and the other part was that I wanted a door so I could keep everything that was not art related out of there {including camping gear, laundry and what ever else found its way down to the space, including tools, nick knacks, toys and dog bones}.   Natural light was the biggest thing that I missed, but otherwise it was cozy and I have good memories of that place.  I was able to create a few areas that I enjoyed working in, and I couldn't complain really, after all I had space that was much bigger than what I had years before we had that house.  Before this, I had a corner of the kitchen table to work on

I liked my desk area and no, that was not a real wall behind it...  But rather lots of cardboard, wood beams and fabric.  My favourite piece of furniture in there was the large solid wood cabinet that I bought when the store I worked in closed for good.   I want to paint the whole cabinet in white, but lack of space and time I only got to one small part of it {where the little drawers are}.

My inspiration boards, where I blogged in the kitchen {that was a very bright spot to work from}, dining room table where I did my water colours, the portable studio on a butlers tray and my work desk that was always covered with paints and everything else...

This picture can just speak for it self, lol...

And so Mr B knew I wanted more light {and walls}and I knew he wanted a better office space, and we all knew that we wanted our own four walls.  So this year we fixed the house up, staged it and put the "for sale" sign up and we started to look for our next home.  All happen pretty fast, our house sold after just four days on the market and after a few weeks of searching for that perfect house for us.  We found it, and just yesterday we had the movers here unloading all the stuff in here to our new home...

So...

And this is one of the two entrances to my new studio, and as you can see, I have walls {real walls} and light, lots of light.  The first time I saw this space, I could swear I heard angels sing...  Or maybe it was just me with my inside voice that came out screaming "mine, mine, mine"... Well, it was music to my ears : )
This is the entrance from the garage.

And this is the entrance from the back garden, I just love that old screen door, it gives you that cottage feeling when you open it and step in to the back yard.  And it lets a nice breeze through on hot days.

And let me tell you about the heat, we have had record hot weather here in Ottawa and due to all these wonderful west facing windows that I now have.  It gets very hot in here during the day, today it was + 34.5c and it has been hard to get started with unpacking all the boxes and making this space to be mine.

To the right you can see bits of the old wood stove {unique piece, its from an old tug boat}, I have to have it checked out to see if I can use it.  Cant imagine it right now in this heat, but one day it will get cold here again and if we get days like past winters, it can go down below -30c.  So that could be very nice to have while I'm painting.  Picture was taken before the sea of boxes flooded the space, and here they are all stacked and waiting to be opened up {I wondering if all my materials are melting in there}. 
This is my beautiful yet temporary desk and because I still cant locate my boxes with the printer, scanner or my special programs.  So I used this really neat program called Picmonkey on line for some photo shop pictures {the first three pictures above}, its a lot of fun and perfect when you don't have the real program to work on. 

This space was used as a wood shop by the last owner, and he did a lot of fantastic work from this room and all around the house.  He is very good with wood working and I'm sure he will miss this space and I bet he would have a heart attack if he knew what I'm up too.  But, now its time for my work.  So I recruited my dear son Alexander to do some work and even with the heat, he was happy to get in there and start taking things apart.  And as you can see my trusted secretary Charlie is keeping a close eye on things

Out went the old wood bench and in came the bottom half of my cabinet, both heavy as
"H, E, double hockey sticks" and one of these days when it cools down just a tad bit, we will take out the top cupboards so I can get the top part on to the cabinet back on.  Cant wait!

And I have so many plans for this new space, I have made a few rough sketches of what I'm thinking of and this layout I like the best {so far}.  I wish I had more to show you right now, but I just moved in here {like yesterday} and I will have to post as I go with this and I hope you will come back and see it as it grows in to a new space. 

But for this weekend, I will only sketch a bit more, measure, plan and dream what I will do with this space.  Not much you can do when its hot like this {I know, some of you live in nice hot climates, but I'm in Canada...  A Viking in Canada to boot, I'm not really good with heat like this} and not to mention, I have rest of the house to unpack as well and I think the kids would be happy if we get at least one area of the house back to some kind of normal state.

I know this might not as exciting as other studios in this party and I know I don't have as many pictures as others.  But I want to thank you for stopping by and I'm looking forward to sit back a bit and relax, checking out all the other creative spaces.  Really looking forward to that. 

Happy Summer and create lots : )   And thank you Karen for hosting this party again, cheers!!

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