house – Page 7

April 24, 2012 by Tien Chiu 2 Comments

Breathless whirlwind

The last few days have been awhirl between work, contractors, packing, and oh yes, a little weaving. But I’ve arranged for estimates on redoing the flooring, painting most of the house, and some plumbing work, and figured out the general timeframe for our move. It is looking like the construction work will complete sometime around May 18, which means we could conceivably move in the weekend of May 25. Being a good project manager, however, I’m building in a buffer, so we will most likely move the weekend of June 2. (Which, alas, means I may miss my bi-monthly guild meeting! A pity, because I was really looking forward to June’s program.) Nothing is in stone yet (we haven’t even gotten estimates from everyone), but at least I can pencil in a schedule now.

Meanwhile, I have laid out the weaving studio with blue painter’s tape on the floor of the garage. I had to make a number of changes “on the fly” – mostly, making the walkways wider – but I think I’ve arrived at a workable arrangement. I still have to show it to B., though.

Regarding the woodworking dust, it’s a good question. I don’t have a good answer to that, and dust isn’t good for the compudobby (or me!). However, since B. favors working with hand tools, there will probably be less dust flying around than if he were using a power sander. We’ll have to figure that out as we go. Better ventilation? Draperies between the woodworking and weaving areas? Life’s a puzzle.

I have also assembled a new 2’x4′ utility shelf, this time for my dyework. I’ve also hauled all my dyestuff and screen printing stuff out of cabinets, off the floor, etc. and put it into plastic tubs:

dye and screen printing equipment and supplies, nicely organized!

Er, yes, there is rather a lot of it. And there is still stuff left in the cabinets! But most of it is in those boxes. It’s basically a full set of Lanaset dyes, a full set of Cibacron F dyes, some Pro MX dyes, a full set of screen printing inks, various dyeing auxiliaries, devore and discharge supplies, tools for applying dyes (brushes, syringes), containers of all shapes and sizes, and safety equipment. I still need to pack the weighing and measuring equipment. Rather daunting, really.

On the slate for the coming week: finish weaving the yardage for the CNCH gallery (up to seven yards now, so only one yard left!), finalize things with the contractors, build the platform for the loom, and help B. figure out how to cut up cabinetry so we can install a dishwasher.

And work, of course. Did I mention that I have a full-time job? And a very busy one, at that. It’s a good thing I’m the original Energizer Bunny – I’m needing that energy, right around now.

April 22, 2012 by Tien Chiu 2 Comments

Weaving studio layout

I wasn’t able to sleep last night, so I got up at 2 am and designed the weaving studio:

The big orange rectangle is the loom platform. Because we’ve got the loom in the same room as the water heater, B. is strongly suggesting that we put the loom up on a platform, so if the water heater leaks I don’t wind up with a bunch of expensive carpentry to repair the legs of the loom. The platform will be pretty simple, a 4’x8′ sheet of 3/4″ plywood, with 2″x2″ boards nailed to the bottom. Some kind of flooring on top, haven’t decided which yet. I’m leaning towards some kind of rubber nonskid flooring, but not carpet, since carpet is a pain to clean. (Suggestions welcome, however.)

I’ve decided to add a large shelving unit to hold my surface design tools (dyeing, screen printing, stamping, Thermofax, etc.) They have been multiplying beyond my capacity to store and as a result are spending too much of their time strewn randomly about. This will let me consolidate my storage, and make things more convenient to cart in and out – especially if I can package things into storage tubs rather than having to pick out individual items, as is presently the case. I’m really looking forward to getting this unit into place and organizing things properly; in fact, I may pick it up and start the organization today!

Plan for today is to pull out the baseboards in the entire house, which will allow the painters to come in and do their thing relatively easily. We did one of the bedrooms yesterday, but it was really too hot to do much work – hopefully we can get a few good hours in today before it heats up!

In the afternoon, when it’s too hot to work on the new house, I may do some more dyeing. I still have a bunch of shirts to dye, and a bunch more weaving to do, too. Plenty to keep me busy!

April 21, 2012 by Tien Chiu Leave a Comment

Lots to do

Having acquired a home (yay!), B. and I now need to make it habitable. Aside from adding a dishwasher, we can’t do much with the inside of the house, since we’re having it repainted and refloored, so we’re focusing on the outside and the garage. In particular, B. is starting work on the garden/back yard, and I’m trying to figure out the garage. We’re planning to make a woodworking studio for B., a weaving studio for me, a weightlifting workout area (ideally with room for a power cage), and oh yes, store all the random stuff that is in our current garage. Fortunately it’s a large garage, but that’s still quite a bit of arranging.

I’m also working on schematics for the rest of the house. We’re going to measure all the rooms today so I can play around with furniture layout, etc. in Visio. I’ve already worked out the layout for my sewing studio; now I need to figure out the master bedroom, living room, and dining room. Knowing where everything goes will allow the movers to position the furniture for us.

Amidst all of this, I am still working on the yardage for the CNCH yardage gallery. I have nine days left before the entry deadline, and have woven 4.5 yards. I’m going to see if I can get another 3.5 yards woven in those nine days, making an eight-yard piece total. Eight yards at 22″ wide is approximately the same as four yards 45″ wide, which ought to be enough for the recipient to make something nice of it. It will be tight, but probably do-able. And I think that will finish off the Infinite Warp. (Hallelujah!)

The last of the contractors (painters, plumber) are coming on Tuesday to give us estimates and timeframes. After that, we’ll know approximately when we can move in. I’m guessing it will be at least two weeks for painting and another two weeks for flooring, so we’ll be moving sometime between late May and mid June.

April 19, 2012 by Tien Chiu 8 Comments

The most beautiful sight of all

Yep. We’re homeowners. 🙂

April 17, 2012 by Tien Chiu 3 Comments

Walkthrough

The house is almost ours! The funds have been wired into escrow, all the papers have been signed, and it’s just a matter of registering the deeds and disbursing the money. We close escrow on Thursday, and the house will be ours. I can’t wait to get the keys!

We did the walkthrough yesterday. Here’s the “before” photo of my new weaving space:

I cheerfully admit that it needs some work. Well, OK, quite a bit of work, but it is much bigger than our previous garage, so there’s plenty of space to work with, and in the short term it should work just fine for weaving – just add some lights, and it’s a workable space. If I need air conditioning, I can open the garage door a bit for ventilation – it rarely gets above the ’70s or low ’80s in our area so I’m not too worried about the weather. Heating I’ll deal with in a couple of months, probably around September or October. And I may do some repainting to cheer things up a bit. Or maybe not. It’s working space, after all.

Here is my soon-to-be outdoor dye area:

The plan is to put a utility sink between the Meyer lemon tree and the garage door. I’m not quite sure where the tools, table, etc. go – most likely in the shade of the tree, near the front door. Dyes, paints, etc. will live in the garage.

And here is my sewing/indoor crafts area (in schematic – there really isn’t enough room to take photos, and besides, an empty room looks pretty boring):

The tolerances in this layout are down to an inch or so, so I will need to wait until the furniture is actually in the room to see if this will work. If not, I do have some fallback layouts – six of them, to be exact. But I like this one the best, so let’s hope it works!

Creatively speaking, I have woven two more yards of the network-drafted fabric, which brings me up to the CNCH three-yard minimum. I’m going to continue weaving, though, and see how much I can get woven before the deadline. I would like to gift it to a person who sews, and since I’m not sure what it would get used for, I’d like to weave a minimum of eight yards in toto – probably won’t finish all of it before the CNCH entry deadline (May 1 I think), so it might have to be in two pieces.

I’ve also realized that there is considerably less leftover warp than I had thought – maybe six or seven yards left, best guess – so this may well finish off the Infinite Warp, and free up the loom for other things.