Finding What We Need

The reason for starting this blog was to discuss how I might build a studio space to work in. The problem is that I paint murals, so the "studio" would have to be quite large right? Well that depends! Much of the work on murals is done in advance of actually painting on walls. In most cases, most of the preliminary work can be accomplished in a home office on a computer and drawing table.

Currently I live in a two bedroom apartment and use the second bedroom as an office/guestroom. I manage to get a little work done here but I don't feel like I can spread out and do more than one thing at a time. I set out one project and the room seems to fill up fast! See what I mean.....





Well, I am in the process of buying my first house so things will be changing by the end of July. About a month or two ago I really started thinking about either looking for a bigger apartment or getting a condo/townhouse. But I haven't had a very positive experience at my current apartment so why do more of that. After all, that is the definition of insanity right? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So, it's time to move out of Crazy Town!

So I decided that a better option would be to look for a house to buy. As I mentioned above, I have already had my offer accepted and signed all the financing papers and have a closing date set for July 10th. So, let's see how I got to that point and what does this all have to do with a studio?

Initially I was hoping to find a four-car garage with an attached house!!! Since these are not very easy to find I realized that some compromise was quite likely. I did about 25 walk throughs in houses near Milwaukee before I found one worth putting an offer in on. I ended up finding a stone ranch house down on the North Side of the City of Racine (see earlier post). When Mid July rolls around I will (hopefully) have more space to set up a place to work.

The house is a 3 bedroom ranch with a full unfinished basement. I figure I will use one of the main level bedrooms as an office. The room really only needs a wallpaper removal session and a bit of paint to be usable. But I have 2 or 3 large painting easels that I would love to set up and put back to use. This only leaves 2 choices, the garage or the basement? The garage is going to be filled up with my old blue car so that won't work. So this leaves me the unfinished basement.

My big dilemma here is, what to do to make the basement a nice space to work in? If anyone reading this has any ideas, please post some comments or drop me an email. I would like to build and finish a room in the basement that could be used as a small-scale painting studio. Alright then, what flooring option works best over concrete? Tile or laminate? How do I address moisture issues in this space? I have some ideas but since I can't even really get in the place for another month, what to do, what to do? It's hard to put together a plan from 12 miles away.

There is also a 2nd bathroom in the basement that needs a total re-do. It appears that the room is original equipment from around 1960? So, it all needs to come out and be rebuilt. I have some ideas for this room but need to learn some new building techniques and how to work with some new materials. I would love to build a glass block bathroom similar in style to this...




I really like how these glass block rooms look when they are lit up from inside. I also have been having some ideas pop into my head on how to finish the inside of the bathroom? I am leaning towards using either white square tiles or subway tiles on the walls and smaller tiles on the floor and in the shower. I came across a sink/vanity today that I really like and want to buy really bad!!! It's kind of retro and modern at the same time and would work together well with the glass blocks, I think!



Along with this, just a lot of white and chrome and black accents. I really am looking forward to building this room from scratch. I just need to do a lot of research and find out what materials and finishing techniques work best in basements? I will post pics of the project from beginning to end once I get started on it. Looking forward to input and feedback as I go along!

Now... off to learn how to do all this work!