Taming the Chaos

 

We've made a lot progress in taming the chaos in the basement studio and workshop, but there is a long way to go.  

If you want to see what the studio looked like after I had moved in but before I started unpacking down there, just look at the previous post Total Chaos in a New Location.   But honestly, don't bother.  I can't think of any reason why you would want to.

Usually I only write when I think I have something useful to say.  I'm writing now just to let you know I haven't forgotten about you, dear readers, and to let you know that I will be back some day.  Probably not any time soon though.  And if you want to know why, well, the photos below will illustrate that.

My daughter was out of town for a few weeks working far too physically closely with a bunch of people, some of whom didn't take the whole mask thing seriously enough. When she got back her husband came and stayed with me for a couple of weeks until she had let the appropriate amount of time pass and then tested negative for covid.

OMG I feel like I have been waiting my whole life for a son-in-law who is handy around the house!  (They got married in October of 2019.)

One of the many thing he did for me was assemble five wire shelving units for the studio and workshop.  Jim is fortunate enough to be working from home and for the two weeks he was living and working from my home we didn't wear masks around each other.  Both of us have minimal exposure to the outside world.

In the old studio I had a nine foot wide wall with floor to ceiling built in shelves housing most (but not all) of the quilting cottons.  I built those shelves myself based on a distant memory of my ex throwing some shelves up in a shed for me in what seemed like half a minute.  I built them very badly but the cottons did not mind how wonky they were. And they were visibly wonky.

The shelves at the old house were 12 inches deep and I bought 18 inch deep wire shelves thinking that this would mean that I could get 50% more fabric on them.  They had been packed as folded, so as I unpacked the first two boxes I refolded each piece to fit the 18 inch shelves.  Two boxes took me an hour to refold.  And surprise, surprise, refolding them seemed to fluff them up so that they took exactly the same amount of height.  They will probably compress a bit over time but I really would like to get unpacked before 2022.  So I stopped the refold project and just started chucking them on the shelves as-is.

We left the top shelf off of two of the units so we could put the rolled fabric up there until it finds a better permanent home.  I realized very early in the unpacking that everything would probably end up being moved around at least once.

When the quilting frame was moved into the new house I asked the movers to put it in the studio, along the wall where the aforementioned fabric shelves ended up.  It fit perfectly there but all that fabric had to go somewhere and I soon realized that I hadn't allowed for that.  When the movers put it in the room was empty.  When we needed to move it out into the workshop both rooms were full of stuff.  It is 10 feet long and had to be dis-assembled in order to be moved.  Jim did that and while it was in smaller pieces he added eight casters to it.

OMG casters!  Be stll my beating heart!  I can now move it with my little finger.  And that is no exaggeration.  The casters turned out to be the worst part of the project too, because those bottom legs are only an inch square and casters don't come small enough for that.  He bought the smallest available and then had to drill two extra holes in every one to get them to attach securely.

The ability to move it easily will always be important but it is especially important now when there are still boxes stacked up in rows to either side of it.

Jim suggested replacing the shop lights with LED shop lights.  The original shop lights had never worked very well and did not survive the move.  I could have tried just replacing the bulbs but the four LED shoplights were surprisingly inexpensive and a huge improvement.  As usual the link is provided only for your interest and convenience and sadly Amazon is not paying me to promote anything.

Jim and my covid-free but still careful daughter came over later and installed the shoplights, including two over the big worktable. 

You can see the other two wire shelves he assembled behind the worktable.

 

The top of this worktable is concrete.  Yes, really.  I bought it years ago at a thrift store for $25 without really understanding what it was but recognizing that it would be an indestructible work surface.  The surprising news that it was concrete came when the thrift store workers struggled to get it into my truck.  And then I had to hire some guys to schlep it down the hill to the studio in my old house.  But it was worth it.

The movers I hired initially told me that they would not be able to move it for me and I was sympathetic.  So I was surprised and delighted when they changed their minds and brought it.  It is a fantastic work table.

My future daughter-in-law Jenn (they are waiting until the pandemic is over to have a glorious wedding) has also been invaluable.  Imagine trying to find specific things hidden in two rooms stacked to the sky with boxes.  She has an amazing eye and has found things several times.  Including my Babylock Evolution serger, one of the great loves of my life.  And my most expensive sewing machine purchase ever and worth every penny.  

I had saved the humongous box that it came in and repacked it in that for the move.  It was much larger than most of the boxes so when I couldn't find it I started to fret about it.  You know how that goes.  I knew it had to be somewhere in there but I still worried about it more and more.  Jenn winkled it out from underneath a huge pile of boxes.  

For a brief moment it was there in all its glory but I quickly covered it to protect it and then it became a handy place to put things as I continued to unpack.  Sigh.

BTW, if you need to cover a machine I can highly recommend searching for a clear plastic tote with the right dimensions.  Both the serger and my embroidery machine are covered this way.  

It's still pretty chaotic down there but with the help of my family there has been progress!  

* * * * * * * * * * 

And speaking of family we had a wonderful if unusual Christmas.  We had celebrated Thanksgiving together in my daughter and future daughter-in-law's carport.  It's a two-car carport and we were in three widely separated sets, much more than 6 feet apart.  We're doing our best to minimize risk, and following the science as best we can. 

Living in North Carolina has its advantages.  But we didn't expect to be lucky enough to do the same thing for Christmas.  And indeed as it approached the weather reports predicted a wet and very cold Christmas, which fell on a Friday.  But Wednesday was predicted to be sunny and in the 50s.  So we moved Christmas to Wednesday.  We sat outside from 1 to 6 pm.  It was comfortable most of the day but got quite chilly after 4.  We opened some presents, had a meal, opened more presents, had hot cider and snacks and all in all had a wonderful time.  We stayed masked even though we were outdoors and distanced, except for the times when we were shoving delicious holiday food into our mouths or slurping hot apple cider.

Our family has always been very flexible about moving birthdays around to suit people's work or travel schedules but this is the first time we have moved Christmas.  I thought it might feel funny or sad on the actual Christmas but the Wednesday celebration was so fabulous that it didn't bother me at all.  And the weather really was rotten on the Friday.

Knowing how many people were missing their families on Christmas made us especially grateful for the opportunity to celebrate together.