Can we see it already?

Yah yah yah....I've been going all great guns with the studio re-do.  It really is almost done.  But I've been a Lee for several years now.  And well, Lees are busy people.  We don't like to waste time.  This is one thing I've noticed about Lees.  This is why we are always late. 

Lee 1 will be ready to go.  Lee 2 needs a few more minutes.  So Lee 1, not wanting to waste minutes, will: 

• a) start a load of laundry
• b) change her shoes
• 3) etc. 

Lee 2 is now ready, but Lee 1 is still loading the washing machine. 

Lee 2 then:

• answers an e-mail. 

Lee 1 is ready again, but Lee 2 is still typing. 

Lee 1 then:
 
You get the picture.

The other thing about Lees, is we think we are incredibly efficient and therefore think we can take on many things at the same time.  What ends up happening is this...my handy husband rebuilt the island in the kitchen from the ground up.  It's larger, it has more storage, and it now has an eating bar.  It's beautiful.  Or it will be, once it gets painted.  And the tile gets the final coat of grout.  You see, it's perfectly functional, and has been since December.  So that's the problem.  We get it to perfectly functional, then start to feel the heat from another fire we started, and turn our attention towards that. 

You see, my office / sewing room is now perfectly functional.  It's even mostly decorated as well as organized.  But, it's not done.  The valance still needs to be made.  My two little pine chests from Ikea need to be painted.  There is a large basket full of "don't know where to put these things" things just outside the door.  I'm to the point of having to make lots and lots of little decisions about frankly unimportant stuff. 

In the meantime, I had to pay bills, I had to plan a craft for Daisy Scouts, I had to write an article for my church newsletter, I needed to prep for a meeting I was leading...

I will say this, my office functions SO MUCH better.  Everything I needed to do all of that was within reach.  And I still have room to apply pencil to paper when needed. 

And why didn't I include "blog post" on my large list of other stuff to-do?  Because I had it in my head, that my next post, for continuity's sake, needed to be the conclusion of my studio re-do series.  Since I wasn't done with the re-do, because I haven't worked on it for a week or so, it would be against my "rule" to post about something else. 

This post, however, accomplishes two things.  First, the post is technically about the process of my office re-do, since apparently, stopping work once I get to the point of "Perfectly Functional" is part of my process.  Second, this post is indeed a post, and it makes me happy to write this blog.  So now, I'm back to being happy.  That's pretty fabulous.

Oh, and my other reason for not finishing the office.  (I mean, studio) There are times when you gotta make hay when the sun shines.  And the sun has been shining in the Pacific Northwest for several days now.  In a row.  I've even turned off the furnace.  So I've been outside.  Planting, and planting, and sitting on my behind in my chair outside admiring my planting.  Ooh, an idea for my next post.  My hidey hole in the backyard.  You're going to love it !! 

( I should go take some pictures while the sun is shining !!)

Colorful Character

I am one with color.  There is little to nothing about me that could be described as beige.  I realized several years ago that bright or deep rich colors make me happy.  They also look the best on me, with my cool skin tones.  I've become kind of known for my colors.  My winter wool coat is magenta.  My everyday spring coat is red.  The fleece jacket I'm sporting right now is apple green.  My purse is navy blue purple.  I often tell people, "I'm far to colorful a character to wear bland clothing." 

I think my penchant for color stems from growing up in rental housing. Off white walled rental housing.  I didn't live in an "owner occupied" home until I was 28 - when I was the owner occupier.  It was then, I picked up my first paint roller, and made my first paint mistake.  Pale pink.  I thought I was getting a pinky beige.  Nope.  It was pink.  Pure and simple.  In the living room.  It's ok, though, it was the early nineties, and the pink did "work" with my teal and white striped sofa set.  Sort of a Miami Beach vibe.  ( I'm just sorry I don't have a picture available to insert right here.)

I've since learned the value of two trips to the paint store.  The first one, to buy the sample quart.  It's imperative this step of the painting the room process not be skipped.  Imperative!

Now, how to marry my deeply rooted love of color, with my newfound crush on Swedish Country design.  Most walls in Sweden are painted white, pale grey, or pale blue.  And I do mean "pale."  Which of course reflects a great deal of light, whereas my bright colors absorb the light. 

I know I'm in love with apple green.  And magenta, and navy blue, and purple, and red, and yellow.  My studio has been painted a lovely buttery yellow for five or six years.  What to do, what to do?  Well, the buttery yellow fits, sort of, with my scheme...but I kinda wanted to mix it up a bit.  An accent wall perchance? 

I started flipping through my design magazines, looking only at the colors.  And this one room hopped out at me.  (literally, cause it's Kermit the Frog green.  I'm not kidding.) 

Now, when I laid out the room, I essentially split it in half diagonally.  One corner and it's corresponding walls house my office junk, the kitty corner corner and corresponding walls house my sewing junk.  Light bulb !  and not one of those CFL's that take forever to get to full brightness,  but a good old fashioned wattage busting incandescant.  Oh yes.  I could paint the office half of the room Kermit, and leave the sewing half butter yellow!!

Or maybe the office half pale sky blue, in keeping with my scheme, or maybe Kermit, or maybe pale blue, but then again Kermit.  And the debate in my head raged on for several days.  I was loathe to give up my scheme.  Swedish Country homes DO NOT have Kermit green walls. 

Then, this image of my back yard in summer came into my head.  My back yard is small, but it does have a patch of green grass and is ringed with trees and shrubs, all planted by my handsome husband and myself.  And it's so calming to look at.  This sea of green.  Natures green. 

Rules be darned !!  Let anarchy reign !  Kermit, here I come !!

You may notice I have not removed the curtain rods.  No fears...I forgot...until I painted up just a teensy bit more...then I remembered.



And now for the reveal.  My almost finished office corner.  Just a few more tweaks and it's open for business.  I can't wait to show you around.

Vive la liberacion !!

Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait just one darn tootin minute !  Now all of a sudden we're in Spain?  Vive la liberacion...make up your mind, are we in Scandinavia or are we in the Mediterranean in terms of decorating philosophy? 

Well...Vive la liberacion is a cry of overthrowing our oppressors.  Swedes don't have oppressors.  Really, never have.  We (the Swedes, of which I am 1/8th) are a peace loving neutral people.  So no such cry in Swedish.  Hence, I resorted to Spanish.  And, I'm not sure I resorted correctly.  I mean I took two years of German in high school, nearly a century ago.

Intrigued now?  The main concept here, is overthrowing the oppressors, which in the case of my studio, is all the junk.  It's oppressive.  And all the "making do" and perching precariously atop piles and furniture cleverly "repurposed" finally broke me. Literally.  I was having back and neck pain from working in an environment that was not remotely ergonomic.  Not even close. 

When last we met, I had decided on a style for the new room.  Swedish Country.  I also knew what size and what sort of work surfaces I needed.  I wanted to pick those first, cause I figured that was the one area I did not want to compromise on.  I was also hoping to avoid the use of particleboard. 

Well, this turned out to be a week long quest.  But finally, finally, I made a slight compromise, and found the perfect units.  And guess where I found them?  This is the best part.  I found them at IKEA.  You know where Ikea's from right?  SWEDEN !!!  How perfect is that?


The legs are even height adjustable.  And Ikea has a tool on their website that allowed me to calculate the perfect ergonomic tabletop height based on my height.  Plus they have lots of options for adding length, and stuff to the tables.  My compromise?  It's not exactly wood.  It's birch veneer - which is wood - over MDF, which is wood dust and glue.  But, still not particleboard, so that's good.  (right?)

One of these days I will regale you with the story of my getting these tables (two of them) from Ikea, by myself in my mid size SUV.  I won't do it now, because that would be too long of a digression for this post, even for me. 

In order to assemble the desks and install them into the studio, I first had to haul pretty much everything out of the room.  Once I had the tables set up...I didn't want to bring anything back in.  It looked so good.  So open, so airy. 

Which means, the liberacion began, in earnest.  It was surprisingly easy. Apparently, the trick is to look at the stuff outside of it's natural habitat.  IE, stacked up in the front hall.  Getting it out of the studio, where I was used to seeing it, made me truly realize just how much stuff I'd had in there.  It also made me realize, the sheer volume of this stuff violated rule #3 - Does it make me happy?  Nope, it did not.  So, the oppressive junk has been overthrown - mostly.  Oh sure, there are still pockets of resistance, hiding in the hills.  I am though confident I will eventually take them out...to the Goodwill.

Next up.  Storage.

Swedish design, hold the lutefisk

I am 1/8 Swedish.  It's the most highly concentrated and certainly most interesting part of my heritage.  So I choose to call myself a Swede. 

Sweden, a land of the midnight sun, is also the land of the midday moon in the wintertime.  What, you may ask does this have to do with design, and more particularly, purging the office/studio?  If you'll allow me a little latitude, I'll get to that.

I love all things French country.  No, really, I do.  I love the textiles, particularly toile, but also the blue and the red and the yellow and the green Provencal fabrics.  I love the colors, I love the wood.  The furniture, the paneling.  Those dark rich woods. The parquet floors.  I can look at French Country design books all day.  I can envision it in my house.  My sub-division even has a French name !

And so began my quest to decorate my home in the French Country style.  In the sun, it looks great, and warm. But, here, in the Pacific Northwest, unlike the South of France, we don't have sun in wintertime.  We have the grey clouds.  And we also have grey clouds.  Sometimes we even have, wait for it, grey clouds.  So, dark and heavy furnishings, well it just looks dark and heavy.  And not happy at all.  I need happy.  I neeeeddd happy.

Back to being Swedish.  One day, while learning more about my Swedishnish, I happened upon a book about Swedish Country Design.



Eeh?  That's right.  Swedish Country. 

Seems back in the day, old King Gustav went to visit his King buddy in France.  He liked the furniture.  So he took some back to Sweden with him.  But it was dark and heavy.  So, he painted it.  White or palest grey, or pale blue.  It's pretty much like my beloved French Country, only instead of oak and walnut, everything's made out of oak and pine.  Instead of dark rich stain, its whitewashed.  Or painted.  Painted light colors.  Why?  It's all cleverly designed to fool the mind into thinking there's more light than there actually is.  It's a psychological and totally genius way to decorate. 

Where contemporary Swedish design has very clean lines and is essentially minimalist, Swedish Country allows for a bit more flair in the furnishings, and more tchotchke's.  Like carved furniture.  Like a Dala Horse.  I do like me a Dala Horse. 



So for my studio, where I often spend a great deal of my day, Swedish Country design it is.  It also helps that my former (sniffle) neighbor gave me her whitewashed pine sideboard and hutch when they downsized last summer.  It's kind of a prominent piece and handy too.  It also reminds me of my all time favorite neighbor.  Which means, It follows my rules.  It makes me happy, and it functions the way I need it to function.  This piece is my jumping off point for the studio. 

Next up, the quest to find work surfaces.....