I finally built out a space dedicated purely to my paint, tools, and so much more. a true art shed to house all my wildest ideas!
this shed had been sitting in our backyard, literally accumulating dust over some storage items and it really hasn't had a purpose. meanwhile, my paint, tools, brushes, wood, everything basically was strewn across the garage and extra bedrooms. Justin gave me the green light to turn the shed into something just for me, and I went full steam ahead!
the outside of the shed was already mural-ed up and beautiful courtesy of when I painted the whole outside of my house a couple of months back, so I really got to focus on the interior.
my vision was to build a workbench along the right wall with pegboards and shelves for my all my tools and paints, and leave the left wall open to eventually add a huge window (we don't have electricity in here so some natural sunlight will go a long way!)
this was my first time tackling any sort of build, so my sketch was pretty rudimentary, but with a lot of explaining I got my dad on board to show me the ropes on how to build something like this and we set out for lowes to acquire what we needed (cue lots of my pointing to my dinky drawing and trying to describe what I needed and my dad interpreting that I needed a massive amount of 2x4's we didn't end up touching).
honestly we just went full throttle at this one, we hammered (ha!) the structure out in a day, my dad bid me farewell, and I was left to tackle the mess and all the touches that would make it feel finished!
at this point I was also caulking, and putting baseboards in!
staring at this wood base, I decided to finally order something I had been eyeing for a while. one of my design gurus has used this feather finish over and over again and I really wanted to try it! but first I used some finishing wood I had laying around from another project and nailed it onto the front to give the counter top the appearance of being thicker!
at this point I also sketched out what I wanted the mural to look and feel like, so that I could choose a color for the desk itself. I wanted bright, fun, imaginative, and colorful (as usual). I ended up going for 2 of the oranges in my stockpile, and picked out a periwinkle to pair with them for the desk.
this is when my feather finish arrived, and I worked through the kinks of figuring out how to use it properly! eventually I got in a groove and did my first coat, let it dry, sanded it, then did a second and final coat.
for the mural portion of this I sketched out these squiggles that brought a lot of personality to the space as well as led your eye around and around. I wanted a good energy.
I painted them up and around 3 walls, and even onto the ceiling! I kept it basic above the desk, as I wanted to add some simple peg boards so I could mount a bunch of my tools up on the wall.
I also took this time to paint all of my baseboards (yes I cheaped out and bought them non-primed to save some money, sue me!).
surprisingly, this part of the project took a literal full day. mounting something and keeping it level (while also it being the first time you ever do it) is actually quite hard!
I got a huge sheet of pegboard (4x8 ft) and had them cut it into 3 equal sized boards while I was at the store. I built frames for each one, mounted those, then mounted the pegboard on it, painted it (MANY) coats of white, and then transferred the mural on top of that to keep the design seamless.
after this it was all finishing touches, loading my tools in, organizing my paint, etc!
I'm so happy to finally have a dedicated art space in my life!
