A Spot of Purple

I've been painting most items white or very light green, blue or yellow this winter but recently I had the urge to do a couple of small pieces for my living room in dark purple.




So, "Nairobi Dusk" now adds some pop.




A small table -- a Craig's List find.... had been in sad, sad shape is now embellished with swirls and holds a silver plated tray.





Across the room, a detailed little shelf done up in purple holds a well tarnished silver plated tea pot. These two items "followed me home" from my favorite local shop for special finds, The Trading Post.

Our Atelier Unfolds

Our new atelier (workshop) is unfolding!
Our 22 year old son has now moved out on his own (about a half mile away) leaving behind a nice space he had fixed up in our walk-out basement.










It sat for empty for a bit as we adjusted to the empty nest but in recent weeks I have begun to transform it into a creative workshop area.... our "atelier."












I am making the nice space he had renovated into the art & sewing area and transforming the still unfinished section into a space with various works stations for carpentry, wood working, painting, even metal work perhaps???


For those of you who love before pictures...the top 4 are a few taken just as he began to renovate it (2+ years ago)... and the bottom 3 are "now" as I make the inevitable mess that comes with it's current transformation. Hopefully there will soon be some "after" pictures showing some emerging order to the chaos.

Some new acquisitions

We've been laying the ground work for setting up the new art and project studio space on the lower level of the house; our "Atelier" maybe?

There are several balls in the air for this project from tiling the little bathroom to switching the carpentry area and art areas around, creating more storage and getting a lot of junk out of there! Lots of it was "planned' for January break but since I taught and B went to TN, well, not much happened. So I am working on it in bits and pieces, resigned to the fact that some aspects of it will likely have to wait until June when the semester is over. But then, May and June are the height of the gardening season so I am really trying to make headway during the winter months.

This week I acquired some fun pieces for the art area.





One is this great tabouret I bought from a local artist who is moving to Australia (lucky!!). He built this himself a number of years ago and has obviously used it well. I love the fact that the pigments and medium cover much of the horizontal surfaces. Perhaps some inspiration has been passed along with the piece. There are several great drawers for storage too.

Another section of the studio will be a sewing station. On Saturday I was over in the Berkshires and found this great wood storage cupboard that will help me keep thread and other do-dads organized. Oh...and....it came half filled already! I haven't decided if I'll paint it. Likely I will, since it isn't really nice wood and I want to integrate color into the space.

There are a few other additions too but the Super Bowl is on so, I'll share more another day.