Spring Cleaning Continues
Despite great enormous pain this morning and having been up all night last night chatting and brainstorming my edits to Curse of Vaumuru, something very productive, I got going again on deconstructing all the storage in my room.
I have now completed emptying out the space under the table to my right. Not the shelf of the table itself, which will also need emptying, but the space under it and under the easel.
I found lots of good art supplies that I have wanted to use real soon or wanted to use weeks ago and couldn't find. Or knew what they were and couldn't get them out.
Let's see. The big student grade canvas paper pad for doing oil pastel sketches with thinner. Gee. I can fool around with that stuff and the cheap oil pastels without using up my good supplies just doing a quick demo of "this is what it looks like when you try turpentine, this is what it looks like with walnut oil, this is water on watersoluble..." as a test of dissolving various oil pastels.
I wanted that for a long time for any number of things I wanted to try with oils or turpentine and not do canvas boards. For one thing it's good for ACEOs because it's thinner than a canvas board and can go into a regular top loader instead of having to be mailed in a padded mailer.
I found the horsehair drafting brush for cleaning things off when they get dusty and applied it liberally. Needless to say my sinuses have turned to concrete.
I found my beautiful, virgin, untouched, long-desired and anticipated Dremel tool set and attachments pack, still unopened. Opened and looked at in the case of the Dremel case but then sealed up again because I had no place to spread out with it and do small wood crafts.
In my cart at Blick I've got the Alvin Craftmaster II drafting table with eight small drawers, two side trays for pencils etc. and a shallow drawer for putting drafting tools like big French curves and T-squares. I also have a good wood taboret that's on clearance. So that would take care of the "no place to use this" art supplies -- if I kept the table clean and rotated what's out by what I'm doing then I could actually open all my oil pastels sets or all my colored pencils sets and get elaborate on something.
It struck me as I contemplate the stimulus package that's coming, that I could do that with it. Not just get the table and taboret but go one step further and get a cab, go to the Antique Mart, choose a dresser that I can afford, pay for delivery and have the thing brought to me at home. It would be quite an expedition but it would also be a thrill.
My life is stable enough now that if I buy a good piece of furniture I will still have it next year and the year after and maybe for decades. It's not like in New Orleans where I got it cheap or free but abandoned it if I couldn't bring all my stuff to the next apartment -- happened several times and happened to all of it when I left the city. I would try Freecycle but Kitten's taken the car with her to farrier school. So it's cab to the place to choose it and actually make that choice myself.
It would be awesome to do that. I haven't done anything like it since I was self employed in New Orleans and I loved doing it then. We have squashy armchairs so I don't need one of those too, there is one upstairs to replace the wrecked one that's coming out of my room when my table arrives.
However, I could actually look around for a bookcase while I'm down there and if there is one that's not too expensive, get that too.
This is an organizer I definitely want for my studio space: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B001Q8TH5E/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ARD4LLB0290WQ&v=glance is a 60 drawer metal cabinet with little plastic drawers 1/8" short of six inches deep. I have so many small things that have nowhere to go but into drawers with big things where they get lost. A lot of kneaded erasers, tortillons and so forth that I'm always hunting for but never get into the stash because they're buried inside a box under a stack of other art supplies.
60 drawers ought to be enough to organize everything from the worn down short colored pencils (organized by hue) out where I'll use them up handy, to the pencil sharpeners, kneaded erasers, half used bits of oil pastel that lost their wrappers. I can also keep separate the bits and pieces of student grade ones from the bits and pieces of artist grade ones when they start to wear down.
I've got to ask myself whether to do that or get something that's an upgrade on something I already have. A new laptop is an upgrade on a perfectly good one I'm using right now. Not using up all my savings on that would mean I could do it in a few months anyway if I keep on with the savings plan. The other biggie that would be a two-month focus and skip savings for those months would be to get the 225 color Holbein set from Dakota pastels. It would be grand. It is out of reach but wouldn't be with the stimulus, but it would put off the table till May and it would also wind up putting off the dresser another month longer along with the casters for the chair.
Furniture is looking more practical much as I'd enjoy the Holbeins. If I had that furniture and everything in this room clean and put away most of the time, then I could use a three drawer set like those Holbeins and actually have all the trays open in reach.
So maybe the thing to do for the Holbeins is to save extra beyond the Pratchett plan but not go nuts on it, not go to deprivation for a month to get Holbein a month later. More like do what I did this month and do an Amazon run for new books for the new bookcase should I be lucky enough to find one, or at least get shelving mounted for more book space.
But I have a good laptop and I have 100 Holbeins. If I get my room clean -- really clean the way people in houses who have enough shelves, cabinets, drawers and dressers for their stuff keep it -- then that is a permanent quality of life improvement. I know I will enjoy using that table. I know that I'll finally have a place for all the stuff I'm always hunting for. So maybe that is the best strategy -- focus on the furniture and do that in one great sweep. I might even get another lamp to have more good lighting.
I did as much today as I did yesterday and I think tomorrow I may be ready for Karl to come in and vacuum and steam the carpet. He said if I'm hauling everything out like this and clearing the floor completely, he'll move the furniture too and steam the entire carpet. So that does mean dumping out the small bookcases and stacking everything on the bed during the process. I should try this evening to get as much else taken out as I can and stacked up out of the way so that tomorrow everything goes on the bed, floor gets cleaned and reconstruction goes on as if I just moved in.
I can see some things across the room that should go in deep storage so that they're not in my way and free up some shelf space on the little cube shelving. If I got a good bookcase I might be able to either get rid of that or just have it for extra storage space.
I have now completed emptying out the space under the table to my right. Not the shelf of the table itself, which will also need emptying, but the space under it and under the easel.
I found lots of good art supplies that I have wanted to use real soon or wanted to use weeks ago and couldn't find. Or knew what they were and couldn't get them out.
Let's see. The big student grade canvas paper pad for doing oil pastel sketches with thinner. Gee. I can fool around with that stuff and the cheap oil pastels without using up my good supplies just doing a quick demo of "this is what it looks like when you try turpentine, this is what it looks like with walnut oil, this is water on watersoluble..." as a test of dissolving various oil pastels.
I wanted that for a long time for any number of things I wanted to try with oils or turpentine and not do canvas boards. For one thing it's good for ACEOs because it's thinner than a canvas board and can go into a regular top loader instead of having to be mailed in a padded mailer.
I found the horsehair drafting brush for cleaning things off when they get dusty and applied it liberally. Needless to say my sinuses have turned to concrete.
I found my beautiful, virgin, untouched, long-desired and anticipated Dremel tool set and attachments pack, still unopened. Opened and looked at in the case of the Dremel case but then sealed up again because I had no place to spread out with it and do small wood crafts.
In my cart at Blick I've got the Alvin Craftmaster II drafting table with eight small drawers, two side trays for pencils etc. and a shallow drawer for putting drafting tools like big French curves and T-squares. I also have a good wood taboret that's on clearance. So that would take care of the "no place to use this" art supplies -- if I kept the table clean and rotated what's out by what I'm doing then I could actually open all my oil pastels sets or all my colored pencils sets and get elaborate on something.
It struck me as I contemplate the stimulus package that's coming, that I could do that with it. Not just get the table and taboret but go one step further and get a cab, go to the Antique Mart, choose a dresser that I can afford, pay for delivery and have the thing brought to me at home. It would be quite an expedition but it would also be a thrill.
My life is stable enough now that if I buy a good piece of furniture I will still have it next year and the year after and maybe for decades. It's not like in New Orleans where I got it cheap or free but abandoned it if I couldn't bring all my stuff to the next apartment -- happened several times and happened to all of it when I left the city. I would try Freecycle but Kitten's taken the car with her to farrier school. So it's cab to the place to choose it and actually make that choice myself.
It would be awesome to do that. I haven't done anything like it since I was self employed in New Orleans and I loved doing it then. We have squashy armchairs so I don't need one of those too, there is one upstairs to replace the wrecked one that's coming out of my room when my table arrives.
However, I could actually look around for a bookcase while I'm down there and if there is one that's not too expensive, get that too.
This is an organizer I definitely want for my studio space: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B001Q8TH5E/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ARD4LLB0290WQ&v=glance is a 60 drawer metal cabinet with little plastic drawers 1/8" short of six inches deep. I have so many small things that have nowhere to go but into drawers with big things where they get lost. A lot of kneaded erasers, tortillons and so forth that I'm always hunting for but never get into the stash because they're buried inside a box under a stack of other art supplies.
60 drawers ought to be enough to organize everything from the worn down short colored pencils (organized by hue) out where I'll use them up handy, to the pencil sharpeners, kneaded erasers, half used bits of oil pastel that lost their wrappers. I can also keep separate the bits and pieces of student grade ones from the bits and pieces of artist grade ones when they start to wear down.
I've got to ask myself whether to do that or get something that's an upgrade on something I already have. A new laptop is an upgrade on a perfectly good one I'm using right now. Not using up all my savings on that would mean I could do it in a few months anyway if I keep on with the savings plan. The other biggie that would be a two-month focus and skip savings for those months would be to get the 225 color Holbein set from Dakota pastels. It would be grand. It is out of reach but wouldn't be with the stimulus, but it would put off the table till May and it would also wind up putting off the dresser another month longer along with the casters for the chair.
Furniture is looking more practical much as I'd enjoy the Holbeins. If I had that furniture and everything in this room clean and put away most of the time, then I could use a three drawer set like those Holbeins and actually have all the trays open in reach.
So maybe the thing to do for the Holbeins is to save extra beyond the Pratchett plan but not go nuts on it, not go to deprivation for a month to get Holbein a month later. More like do what I did this month and do an Amazon run for new books for the new bookcase should I be lucky enough to find one, or at least get shelving mounted for more book space.
But I have a good laptop and I have 100 Holbeins. If I get my room clean -- really clean the way people in houses who have enough shelves, cabinets, drawers and dressers for their stuff keep it -- then that is a permanent quality of life improvement. I know I will enjoy using that table. I know that I'll finally have a place for all the stuff I'm always hunting for. So maybe that is the best strategy -- focus on the furniture and do that in one great sweep. I might even get another lamp to have more good lighting.
I did as much today as I did yesterday and I think tomorrow I may be ready for Karl to come in and vacuum and steam the carpet. He said if I'm hauling everything out like this and clearing the floor completely, he'll move the furniture too and steam the entire carpet. So that does mean dumping out the small bookcases and stacking everything on the bed during the process. I should try this evening to get as much else taken out as I can and stacked up out of the way so that tomorrow everything goes on the bed, floor gets cleaned and reconstruction goes on as if I just moved in.
I can see some things across the room that should go in deep storage so that they're not in my way and free up some shelf space on the little cube shelving. If I got a good bookcase I might be able to either get rid of that or just have it for extra storage space.