This last weekend I held an Open Studio event to showcase my artwork and my new art studio. We had our garage remodeled to art studio/laundry room/study for I and my husband. For more information, see my blog post at https://judykellystudio.com/blog/123187/my-new-art-studio-a-garage-mahal
The contractor finished at the beginning of August and we began putting up shelving and picture ledges from Ikea. We brought up some of my art stuff from the basement. I say some, because like most artists, I have a lot of supplies, especially frames. So, at the beginning of December the studio was ready for an Open House. About 30 friends and neighbors stopped by to share some holiday cheer. Below is a video of what the studio looks like now. Happy Painting!
Like most artists, I dreamed of having an art studio at my house. When I was still teaching full-time, I would use the enclosed porch of our walk-out basement in the summertime for my art studio. It had plenty of windows for natural daylight. But alas, the porch was not heated, so in winter I would have to move all my art stuff into the basement, which was cold and dark. I researched the cost of adding a room to serve as an art studio on the west side of the house. Well that came back as way too expensive. So we looked at other options. Since the cars spent most of the time in the driveway, we decided to take the garage and remodel it into an art studio/laundry room/study for I and my husband.
Our house in 2003.
our garage in 2003
This year, 2017, we hired a local contractor to do the remodeling. He removed the garage door in put in a smaller sliding glass patio door. Next he put in a vinyl plank floor over the old cement floor. An electrician rewired the garage and put in new outlets for all the electronic stuff. The washer and dryer were brought up from downstairs and installed. The drywall was repaired and a heating/cooling unit installed. Lighting is always a concern to artists because it affects the way you see colors. Just google "lighting artist studio" and you will find many opinions. In the end, we had four new LED ceiling lights put up. Each one gives 80 lumens of 4000K bright white light. I chose a warm gray for the wall color because I was concerned about the wall color reflecting on my paintings and influencing my selection of colors.
