Studio tour!

Hello everybody, Hoi allemaal!

I hope you are all enjoying spring, we are having some marvelous days over here. If you are inside your house already you probably want to join me on a little studio tour.

This is where the spring cleaning has been done already. I forgot to take 'before photos', which isn't too bad, as I still had my 'before' photos of last year.

Come on let's start:

Iedereen klaar voor een kleine rondleiding na de voorjaarsschoonmaak in mijn kleine atelier?

Het begon zo, voordat ik aan een uitdaging meedeed ergens in mei 2008, bleef het gewoon nooit opgeruimd.

This is my little studio BEFORE anything happened. The problem was that how hard I tried it was never tidy. Main problem; too much stuff , secondary problem I couldn't find anything because things just didn't have a place of their own. So I joined a challenge. Reorganizing your study in a couple of weeks, last year.


Ik wilde opruimen maar:
geen plastic kratten in het zicht

Apart from reorganizing, I had my own goals:

* I didn't want to use any plastic containers (visible).
* I didn't want to buy anything new.
As there were more than enough high potentials living in the basement, waiting for a second life.

*This room is small but rather high, so I wanted to use that space:

en ook wilde ik niets nieuws kopen en
van de hoogte gebruik gaan maken.

The cupboard above the desk is a former mail divider from the post office in Vlaardingen, bought just before the challenge, with the intention to hang it up here.



desktop before...I only need a couple of square inches to work...



The sewing machine is next to the desk now, in front of the ladder, which I thought I was going to need in this room because of its height.



After a year the ladder has evolved into a display. I'm standing on my desk to reach the top shelf.

De ladder was eigenlijk bedoeld om ook bij de hoge planken te kunnen komen, maar na een jaar blijkt hij meer dienst te doen als bijzet tafel en ga ik gewoon op mijn bureau staan als ik de hoogte in moet.

ladder voordat...
I originally had only a couple of weeks to reorganize, so I decided not to paint everything, though some items couldn't escape a make over.



Like this too.






I wanted little knick knacks that inspire me in sight and not in boxes or cupboards.



Of course little LiLi M. the dress form doubles as a mood board.



Another of my main goals was to be able to find everything back again.
So I did quite a lot of labeling.
Omdat ik nooit wist waar ik nou precies iets gelaten had heb ik heel veel gelabeld.
Dan hoef je niet iedere keer al die koffers uit te pakken.



Now we are turning to the left. Here the 'before' left!



This corner was already a project done some months earlier, so tidying up would do over here.
But the gathering of buttons just goes on;



I am having much more filled jars than last June.



Now we are turning to the other side BEFORE.
The same mess over here.



I did a lot of labeling over here too. Hubby spray painted the office document cupboard white.


Deze dozen beplakte ik in 1985-1986 met behangpapier van de Hema. Grappig dat ze nu met vintage behang beplakt zijn!
I made these boxes around 1985-86, and used wallpaper bought at the Hema back then in the good old days, when they used to sell a lot of knitting wool and patterns over there too. I still like them a lot! Of course I had to change the labels.



Naturally I had to use the height at this side too. The rack above the cupboard started its life as a shelf, but I put all different kind of hooks on it, to hang things, but to be honest it is still too high to change often. The poodle was made by my daughter and me for a contest of the 'Bijenkorf', our most prestigious department store.



The shelf before, without the hooks.


Het enige dat ik vond waarvan ik niet meer wist dat ik het had!
Oude kinderbehangborders uit Duitsland.

One of the questions in the challenge was: did you find anything again?
Well, the problem with me is not that I don't know exactly what I have, the problem is where to find it. But I completely forgot these; 1920 children's wallpaper borders from Germany, still in the envelope, so I knew that I bought them on Ebay in 2004.



I have a revamped letter tray on this side. When the challenge ended officially (but the host wasn't ready and everything was postponed, postponed again and somehow I never heard from her again) this letter tray was still standing as I needed hubby to assist me to hang it to the wall.
Almost a year later, I filled the tray, but it is still standing. Without a challenge I don't feel any pressure.



As this one, still standing on the cupboard.



The corner when I just finished the room summer 2008.



The same corner after spring cleaning 2009.

My fabrics are kept in the basement in plastic containers, as well as the paints and the brushes.
This room has the potential of staying tidy, but I would need a little more space to keep projects that I am working on. We have a very large basement but I'd rather work here next to the television and computer room. Even when it is way smaller, it's more convenient to me to stay close with my family. Popping in and out of the family room while I'm working, I just love that.

Are you still there? I do hope you did enjoy this little tour. You thought it was to distract you from the Pip room, that probably isn't finished yet? Yes of course you are right!
Talk to you later!

xoxo LiLi M.

Ben je er nog? Wat dacht je: dit is zeker om ons af te leiden van die Pipkamer?
Ja natuurlijk! hahaha, tot de volgende keer, kus LiLi M.