Repurposing the Widow’s Room

Redecorating seems to be a common thing with widows and I’m behind the normal time frame for doing mine. After all the hick-ups, hand wringing and worrying my re-purposed room is finally done. Once just a guest room with a full size bed and not much room for anything else, now it’s a multipurpose hobby room/guest room and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. I spent hours shopping the internet and local stores for options to host a rare overnight guest that has a smaller footprint than the full size bed. I looked at day beds, convertible footstools and benches that turn into twin beds, futons, air mattresses and sleeper chairs. I’ve never bought furniture online before but I took a chance on Wayfair and ordered the smallest sleeper chair I could find. Most sleeper chairs are 51 inches wide with a 35 inches mattress but the Clayton I got has a 35 inches overall width with a 30” wide mattress. (A standard twin is 35 inches but reviews I read online said twin size sheets fit great and for the bonus point the bedding can be stored inside the chair.)

The chair came in a huge cardboard box and I had paid extra to have it delivered to the room of my choice. When the guy asked me to sign the paperwork, I asked him if I could inspect it first so he helped me get it out of its box. I gave him a tip for being so nice about that, but I wish I had asked him if he’d take the empty box out to the garage on his way out. I couldn’t lift it, so I cut it up. I worried I wouldn’t be able to put the chair together on my own, and while it was awkward for someone like me who can’t get down on the floor, I was able to get it together in less than an hour. The holes for the eight large screws had been pre-drilled---so easy-peasy.

The chair only comes in two colors and fortunately I like gray so I bought the area rug to match the chair. It came from Mayfair too. I broke all the rules for how you’re supposed to use area rugs---it’s too small---but I don’t care. I did it because I wanted a clear distinction between the “art studio” side of the room and the guest room/reading/writing/sewing side. Not to mention a painting easel shouldn’t be around that much floor color that can reflect up on the canvas. But the chair needed to be grounded thus the broken rules. It’s my house, I can do that.

The most accurate colors above.

The lamp by the chair is a true-color Ottlite for quilters and crafters. I’ve always wanted one and if not now, when? I’m not getting any younger. The light on my easel is a true-color lamp, too, but the room gets window light from the north which is ideal for artwork. I’ve never painted with northern light so I’m excited about that. The footstool and table next to the chair are pieces I stripped and refinished decades ago. The music boxes on the table are ones Don gave me during my Gone with the Wind phase and the basket on the floor with the books is one my husband’s mom used to carry eggs into town to sell to the local grocery store during the depression.

 

The desk in the corner is the one that I used to keep closed and covered completely with my childhood dollhouse. I agonized about moving the house but in the end I’m glad it found a new table top in the garage. I’ve had this desk and chair since my twenties. They were one of my very first stripping and refinishing projects and I spent a lot of years with it as my only writing space. The baskets in the photo are called running board refrigerators, tin lined and made at the turn-of-the- century when automobiles came with dust jackets and driving goggles. The baskets now contain knitting supplies. The painting on the wall is one of mine from the 1980s, not very good but the colors match the decor in the room. I look at it now and see things that I’d like to change. That’s the trouble with hanging your own artwork so close to where you’ll be mixing fresh paint. 

Sitting in my new chair I get this view of my new art studio corner and the other photo below is my view when standing up behind the chair. (You can click any of these photos to enlarge them.)
 
This painting corner is a standard work center for artists---brushes, easel and paint cart. The rolling cart top is small for mixing paint and holding a palette, but I already owned it so it will do for now. I’ve cheated with the blue storage boxes, they hold more than just painting stuff. One side is teddy bear making, cross-stitch and quilting supplies. They came from the closet in this room and after some purging in there I can now actually sit at my sewing machine and find things. If I ever decide that I won't be making any more bears, the boxes with those supplies will house my oils and watercolors still in the basement.

Speaking of paints, I learned an important lesson when I unpacked my acrylics. The tubes where I was careful with replacing the tops, the paint is still good after all these years, the ones where I wasn’t careful I had to throw out. That’s my next step forward…buy supplies. And wouldn’t you know it, the only art supply store in town just went out of business and I’m boycotting Hobby Lobby, so I have to order online. JoAnn Fabrics has some paints but not very good quality. 

The watercolor print above my brush station is a view that can be seen in Saugatuck, MI, just before the Kalamazoo River meets up with Lake Michigan. It's one of my favorite places in the world.

And last but not least leaving the room you get a view of my spaghetti poodle collection, so named because the clay is pushed through a sieve to get "noodles" that look like hair on the porcelain dogs. The poodle painting above is one of mine from the mid-1980s. I haven’t painted much since then because I got too busy finishing college (25 years after I started) then we got caught up in dealing with parents with increasing needs---first Don’s mom and then my dad ending with twelve years of time consuming caregiving my husband. Gosh, I can’t believe so much time as past since I was seriously into art and bear making! By the way, the sewing closet I didn't put on the tour is to the left of the poodle collection and to the right of the new chair.

Now that you’ve been on the re-purposed room tour, what do you think I should call it? I’ve been calling it the art studio/guest room but that’s too long. A good friend told me to embrace the art part and suggested the art room. Craft room, play room, hobby room and art studio all makes sense, too. Fellow bloggers suggested the peace or sanctuary room or the wellspring. I'm leaning towards just The Studio. I’m so confused! But it does need a name for those times when I think, This needs to go to the _____ room or I say, “I must have been in the _____ room and didn’t hear the phone when you called.”

It may have taken me a while to do a redecorating project so common in widowhood circles but I think Don is looking down from the great unknown and he’s pleased. He was my biggest art benefactor and fan. And he'd be impressed that the make-over only cost twenty-seven cents over nine hundred dollars for what I had to buy---the chair ($652 on sale), two area rugs, two true-color lamps, a throw pillow and bed sheets.  ©