Okay, Let's Finish This Up!- Everything Else

To be honest I've been working in the studio for a little over a week now. It was over a month behind, but in hindsight I think that's not bad considering the natural disaster we went through (I guess "natural" is debatable these days...).

Next post the finished studio. This time I will touch on everything else that was left because the anticipation of writing this and completing the project is over. Quite frankly, now it just cuts into painting time.

The ceiling was part of the "non-mastery" debacle. See earlier posts for reference. Eventually the contractor came in and finished it. It's a spantex knockdown finish.

We installed hardwood flooring. I found it on Kijiji. It's Bamboo. I found about 440 square feet that someone was getting rid of. It was over budget but probably a quarter of what I would've paid full price. I thought I would have to use something else to finish off the model stand but I managed to get the floor, the seat for the window and the model stand, with some left over. I squeezed the guy to make sure there was no waste, I'm also not very good at math. This time it worked out in my favour. The squeezing a guy thing always works out in my favour ;)

The baseboards and casing were installed twice. The contractor screwed up and put in small baseboards. No biggie, they redid it. The case (same guy as ceiling-see debacle). Uhg.

I had banks of fluorescents put in. I did this because you can mimick north daylight with an even spectrum these days. So thats what I got. I like them.

I had redone a fireplace at the old house and had some tile left over. It's nice stuff so I used it for this one. I like the design a lot.

I think that's about it. The eaves needed to be rerouted because of the window. I finished all the furniture, and my easel myself.

Subfloor, Drywall and Fireplace

After the crew spray-foamed, the subfloor was installed. Nothing crazy here just your standard 3/4 inch plywood.

The original plan was to keep an existing fireplace that was in the garage. I think it was a furnace for the house but had been moved outside. The previous owners to us never used it and it wasn't hooked up. After much thinking we decided that after cleaning, servicing and connecting it, the furnace may not even work. When we opened it there were several mice nests in there.

So for the same price we decided to install a fireplace. There is already a gas line and then we didn't need to do any venting in the floor. From here we ran into a major delay because we couldn't get a gas inspector. This was because of the flood. I would have to agree that peoples homes were more of a priority than my studio.

Once that was all framed in and inspected we moved on to drywall. This step really gives you a sense of what the space will look like. The taped and mudded. Some weird angles in this space so it was a mudding challenge.

Building a Studio: Addendum-Not approaching Mastery

I have a huge amount of respect for someone that is a master in their chosen field. I don't really care what that field is. For example: I was travelling and helping a friend move out to Vancouver many years ago. He took me to a nice restaurant by the sea. It was late and the place was closing. I think we sat and watched this elderly Japanese man who was our waiter for a good half an hour as he folded linens. He was a master. He took pride in the task he was doing and you could tell. It was beautiful to watch.

...so this brings me to the guys who did my ceiling, baseboards and trim. They are never going to be masters. It's a simple observation. Rushing through everything, hoping I would say that's good enough. Having to do it over again. Using cheap equiptment, complaining openly that they weren't making any money on this job. (aside-if you had taken pride in your work and done it properly the first time around, you would have made money).

If a person tries and fails, then learns from that and eventually succeeds, cool. That's the best way to learn and eventually master something. If they half ass their way through life, not cool.

I won't openly slam them online, but if you are in the area and need this kind of work done contact me please so I can tell you who they are and not to use them.

These guys were masters.