It’s been almost a year and a half since we moved to France, and I have finally finished unpacking and organizing all the stuff we had shipped over from the U.S. My studio/office was filled for far too long with boxes of art, tools, and supplies until I could design, buy and assemble sufficient furniture to contain all my art and office stuff in some sort of an organized manner. Seems like this took forever!
I lived with boxes in my studio/office space for the past half-year, unpacking as much as possible almost every day, and trying to find some space to put everything somewhere in our apartment, which is not much smaller than the interior portion of the small house we had in Austin, but without the large storage room, garage, attic, deck, etc. Here I have portfolios in a utility closet, paintings in a hall closet, a large drawing behind some bookshelves, and other supplies shoved into whatever space I can find.
Although we sold or left behind maybe 70-80% of all the stuff we had accumulated during our lives separately and together, we had whittled our belongings down to just over 250 boxes to be shipped by sea: clothes, kitchen and dining stuff, some other household goods, a portion of our favorite and most precious books, a tiny bit of media, and our small media center. Plus almost all my drawings, many of my favorite paintings, and as much of my art materials as I thought would make it through customs without a hitch (which it all did, but that meant leaving behind all of my painting mediums, which was a very expensive loss!).
The next step was designing the furniture for my studio/office. Here is my intial sketch:
I refined this, taking careful consideration of the measurements of my space and the furniture I was considering, and then drew up a perspective sketch:
The next step was ordering furniture, in batches, mostly from Ikea (because they’re not expensive and they deliver), and finally, assembling it all. This also tooks a couple of months overall.
Here is the more or less final result for my wall of storage, and I have to say, it’s working out very well for me:
I can pull out the rolling table and/or the art carts, as needed. I have drawers for supplies, and shelves and cubbies for notebooks, photos, and more tools and supplies. The lower cabinets have some great deep storage, and the accessible counter area is great for small standing work, like preparing small paintings for hanging.
