My New ARTHaven–Beginning to Take Shape

Yesterday we went over to the new house again, and the floor in my new ARTHaven is all but completed now. The laminate is laid throughout the ARTHaven proper and the office section, and the wooden trim around the edge is complete in the ARTHaven section.

The next picture shows the trim around the fireplace.

You can see what a beautifully neat job Chris has made of this. It’s a shame that most of this trim is going to be hidden by the units, but little glimpses will be visible!

Chris explained to me that the laminate floor is a “floating” floor – all the sections are fitted together with their tongue-in-groove joints but the floor is not fixed down, and floats on its spongy underlay. The trim around the edge is fixed to the wall, not to the floor. This allows room for expansion and contraction of the floor, and small amounts of movement. Without this, the floor might buckle, or the laminate pieces pull apart. A very clever system.

Andy started to move the assembled base units into the room from the spare bedroom. The back of each one had to be cut away at the bottom to make room for the skirting board, and this was a pretty noisy job with the power saw going!

This is one of the larger, moveable base units. Andy managed to get some nice small castors so as not to increase the height too much, and he has added tops to these units. He will be getting me a few extra shelves, too, so that I can mix and match and customise the units for optimum storage.

The next photo shows Andy and Chris working on the units. You can see Andy adjusting the level of this smaller, soon-to-be fixed unit, which has no top to it – this will be fixed to the underside of the work surface.  This area to the left of the fireplace will be my main work area, and beyond, where the unit is standing across the corner, and along to where Chris is working, will be my sewing and textile art area. My sewing machine will be across the corner.

More base units in the next picture. Sheba (my Silver Bullet Cougar cutting machine) will be across the corner to the right of the window, to the left of my main work area. Under the window I am probably going to have a cutting area and also an area dedicated to heat, with my wonderful ultra-heat-proof Presspahn mats – there will be no self-healing cutting mats anywhere near this area as I’ve warped more of those than I care to admit to!

Great excitement during the afternoon because the ARTHaven worktops arrived! Three great big sheets of heavy duty MDF worktop, and to judge by how Andy and Chris got them upstairs, of no mean weight either!

With great skill they got it round the corner and into the room.

Andy said, “Dressmaker’s table” as they laid it on top of the units! Pity I can’t have it this deep really, but there wouldn’t be room, unfortunately.

The other two sheets they left downstairs until they had cut the first one, so that there would be room.

The work surface is going to be attached to the small fixed base units, and cut in a curve around the two corners of the room each side of the fireplace. At each work station, there will be a larger, moveable base unit on castors, with a top, and this can be pulled out so that I can sit there, and also have an extra surface beside me to work on. There will be wall units with adjustable shelves above, with shelves between, for further storage.

Over the fireplace is my display area. I have got a beautiful shabby chic shelf unit coming from Ebay (should come today) to be the focal point of the room, and the work surface will extend around the chimney breast for further display. The shelves in the photo above (behind Andy) will remain, for additional storage.

Are you jealous yet? You should be!! I am mega-thrilled with my new ARTHaven and am so looking forward to getting all my stuff installed, so that I can start work again. I’ve got so many ideas!

While they were working on it, I decided I might as well start unpacking some of the boxes in the spare bedroom. I have got a trolley in there now, and it will be an easy matter to trundle the stuff across into the ARTHaven, and I’ve got all that space in the spare bedroom to sort it out.

Unpacking the boxes is like Christmas! I am finding lots of old friends, some of which I haven’t seen for months, I’ve been packing up for so long. I am trying to sort them into piles according to category, so they will be easier to transfer once I’ve finished. On the right in this picture you can see the wall units ready to be installed.

The result of this particular session is a nice lot of empty boxes ready to go home again to be refilled! At this rate, my hubby won’t have to raid the supermarkets for more banana boxes. Still lots more to unpack, but I’ve made a good start.

Watch this space for exciting new developments! I am not sure when I shall next be at the house but I think it’s unlikely we will go on Tuesday after my colonoscopy – it depends how I’m feeling. If I can just pop in to take a few photos and then come straight home, I might do that.