In Which We Go On A Date And Plan A New Project

Today Jeremy and I took advantage of our respite care to actually go out and see the second Sherlock Holmes movie.  We don't go to the movies very often; I think the last one we probably saw in the theater was the first Sherlock Holmes movie.  At any rate we enjoyed ourselves, though we both didn't think it was anything spectacular. 

We also spent some time discussing what we'd like to do with the garage over the next few months.  We have a two car garage, but we can't keep the van in it because we wouldn't have enough room to get the ramp down.  Also our garage has stairs up to the house so we'd end up having to take the little guy up the front walk anyway.  Someday we'll put a lift on the garage stairs, but it hasn't been a priority.  Actually right now we can't fit any cars in it because it's full of stuff from our remodel and also Ellen's bed, which has yet to be assembled as we haven't gotten rid of the futon currently occupying that space in her room yet.  But I digress-- the point is that we have a two car garage and only one car that we can put in it.

So we've decided to devote the other half of the garage space to a craft area for me.  My former craft space was Ellen's room, which we are ever so slowly cleaning out.  I've been trying to do my sewing on the dining room table instead, but this is proving to be sort of difficult because the cats are also highly interested in my craft projects. 

This means that I either have to put absolutely everything away every time I'm going to be away from the table or else resign myself to the fact that my embroidery thread, felt, needles, etc. will need to be retrieved from underneath various pieces of furniture before I can resume work.  When I'm in the middle of a project I like being able to pick up immediately where I left off, so this isn't working out well for me.  Not to mention the fact that one of these days a cat is going to swallow the wrong thing and we're going to end up with a very expensive vet trip and/or a very dead cat. 

We're not going to actually enclose the garage for a number of reasons.  First of all, there's no way I want to do that much work.  Secondly, we don't want to increase the square footage of our house and have to pay more taxes.  Also if we decided sometime years and years down the road that we needed to sell the house for whatever reason, buyers would generally choose to have a two-car garage over a craft room.  Luckily we live in an area with a pretty temperate climate.  I can heat the garage with a space heater when I'm out there in the winter time, and I can open up the garage door in the summer if I need some air.  Our garage actually has a large window and good lighting too, so working out there shouldn't really be a problem. 

But even though we're not converting the garage to an enclosed space, there are plenty of things we can do to make it a great crafting studio for me.  I'd like to stain and seal the concrete floor, put down a rug and hang some curtains, paint the walls and add some more shelving and storage and a picture or two.  The craft space could still be easily converted back to a regular garage in the future if we needed to, but it would make it much more pleasant for me in the meantime.  And of course the garage is a cat free zone, so that would solve that problem.  While it probably won't be the ideal space, it's certainly better than the dining room table!  And I really need an area to exercise my creative pursuits somewhere in my living space; I've pretty much always had a corner somewhere and it would be fantastic to stretch out a bit!

I'll be sure to take some before and after photos and let you all know how it goes!

~Jess