My New ARTHaven–The Move Begins!

My second post for today. A most exciting day for me today, as I began at last to move my things into my beautiful new room!

There are still a few finishing touches required in the room, i.e. installing the sink and wall unit, and a shelf for the microwave, and putting up some deep shelves both in the ARTHaven proper and in the office section, but Andy said I could start putting things in there once he had sealed around the worktops.

I began by bringing in some of the office stuff. There are so many boxes in the spare bedroom, and although I tried to be as methodical as possible in packing them, quite a few of them have a mixture of contents, so I have not unpacked these yet. Also, most of the boxes of books are at the back (first ones to be brought over) so those will have to wait. Here is the office so far:

There are some spare pieces of shelving propped up, and the red bucket is there for cleaning off the dust. The red baskets on the bookcase will probably end up in the utility room but were packed up with my ARTHaven stuff. The small black desk which is at present in the sitting room, will slot under the left-hand side of the desk at the end of the room, to fill the gap to the filing cabinet. I’ve managed to access a couple of boxes of books so have started filling the bookcases. All the packs of paper on the shelf above the desk will eventually find their way onto the deep shelves going up on the long walls.

Moving into the ARTHaven proper, here is Andy running some clear silicone sealant around the worktops. He was going to ask Paul if he could use this, and then he said, “No… he was rude to me! I’m just going to take it!” Lol!

On the top shelf you can see my cardboard holders for paper and ring binders. These will be going on the deep shelves in the office.

Here is a picture of the clear sealant. Quite hard to see, isn’t it – but then that’s the general idea! It will stop bits and dust etc. going down behind.

I found one of my boxes of art books so started loading these onto the tall bookcase in the ARTHaven. There are a couple of black shelves propped up in the doorway which may eventually find a home in the office.

The space in front of the left-hand section of the window has been designated my “heat” section. I have put my electric skillet there, because its box was readily accessible. I use this for melting friendly plastic etc.

Over on the other side of the room is the textiles zone. I have just stacked up the packed cardboard boxes on the shelves for the time being – eventually these will be unpacked and organised properly. These boxes contain such things as embroidery fabrics, threads and equipment, crochet, interfacing, etc.

My sewing machine in its new home. On the left of the picture, in the display zone, you can see a box which contains artwork created by other people, which I am longing to be able to display. Beautiful things sent to me by lovely people, and treasures all.

A few Really Useful Boxes in the black shelf unit. The two on the right are long ones for rolls of paper etc. and they fit exactly! As this is a very old unit, I was surprised that the boxes fit so well.

The large ones also fit perfectly in the open shelves of the tall unit which the previous owner had left in the bathroom. They don’t fit in the cupboards, unfortuately, because the doors won’t close! I can put less attractive boxes in there. Another redundant panel which might end up as shelving of some sort. In the corner you can see a cardboard box which just fits – with bits of loom in it. I have two other tall narrow boxes that I want to stow in that corner, full of long thin objects, and the loom bits may end up on the deep shelf above, once it’s fitted. Lots of decisions to be made, and the whole thing will probably be pretty fluid for a while, as I work in it and decide what works best. On top of the wall unit on the left you can see my length of white guttering which is going to be used to create a ruler store.

This is soooo exciting! Unpacking all my gel mediums, gesso etc. onto the mixed media zone shelves by the doorway! The worktop is unfortunately not very wide here so not terribly useful, so the mixed media/painting zone will probably extend further under the window, overlapping somewhat with the heat zone. It needs to be fairly near the sink, though, and eventually, when that is installed, and Mum’s furniture arrives on Friday, I shall have her old pine table which exactly fits in front of the balcony door beside the sink. I have got some small castors which I am going to screw to this table so it’s moveable, and I can access the balcony when I want. This table is probably where I shall do most of my mixed media work.

Another really exciting area! This will be my main work area, to the left of the fireplace/display zone. You can see that I have assembled my brand new Stickles carousel and put the Stickles in, and also my new craft spinner which will house my Ink Dusters. In the really useful boxes I have got my Distress Inks (which I am going to make a carousel to house – I am fed up with the way I used to struggle with them, in piles, with the one you want always at the bottom…), Distress Stains, glitters, alcohol inks, sprays, etc.

On the worktop Andy is going to make me a free-standing shelf for my carousels, and under which I can put my small plastic storage drawers as I had before. My old shelf is now part of the desk in the office. Above this, under the shelf, I have not yet decided what I shall put – possibly pegboard, or small shelf units (e.g. Mum’s old spice rack) screwed to the wall to hold small items like Glossy Accents etc. Under the shelf will be a rail for ribbons and also my gorgeous new little clips from which I am going to hang my rubber stamps – I got the idea here. I got the split rings and clips on Ebay.

On the shelf you can see my little wire rack that I keep my double-sided tapes on, and beside this, the black thing is a clip-on camera mount that I bought recently from Maplins. I have also got a couple of angled brackets with camera mount screws on them, and together, this should enable me to clamp my video camera onto the shelf above, to enable me to video my work. I am intending to rig something over the window to support this as well, and to ensure that I can film anywhere in the room. I can’t wait to press my new video camera into service!

There is still a huge number of boxes waiting to be unpacked. I am going over again on Thursday and hope to crack on then – my hubby is hankering for that room as he needs to fill the fitted cupboard in there, and can’t get anywhere near it – and also to use it for his own storage until after the move. I have explained that I couldn’t make a start until the final work was done on my ARTHaven, but now the electrics are in, and the sealant is in around the worktops, I can go ahead.

I had hoped to be further on with this than I am, because Mum’s furniture is arriving on Friday, and my work will be cut out after that, getting her annexe sorted out in advance of our own move, which we can now confirm will be on Monday 16th September. My main concern is how tired it makes me – time is short and there’s a lot to do, and I need to keep functioning!