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16/08/2022 at 16:28 #176959Mr. AverageParticipant
So it occurred to me that I’m not using my studio quite the way I used to in the past, and it’s ripe for renovation. When I moved into my house, it was where I did all my painting and drawing. But my drawing is now almost all digital (and portable, due to my new tablet), and my painting is more intermittent and flexible, and something I prefer to do in the kind of natural light I don’t have in my studio. It also breaks my poor old cat’s heart when she wakes up from a nap and can’t find me, and she comes scratching at every door in the house until I come out to play.
However, the studio has one great advantage on that point – it is the one area of the house I can in good conscience close off to Feline intrusion. And I have an urge to play some games long term, and leave them set up for a few weeks at a time, without worrying about her chewing on the pieces or dragging the terrain to the floor, as her curious paws would inevitably do.
So I’ve begun the first stages of a major clean out and rearrangement of my studio to turn it into my War Room. Step 1 has been the Thinkin’ About It step, and I’m now moving to Step 2, the Acting On It step. I located a good 4×6 table and some side tables, and am going to get some glass front cabinets for storing my painted figures. For the moment I’m keeping the painting table but it need a major cleanup and organization, possibly including a second set of shop shelves. And finally, I’ll have to cull some old projects and put them in storage, as I have quite a bit of seldom-used material that is slowly decaying.
Photos as I go, and for those of you go have such spaces already, your advice would be most welcome!
16/08/2022 at 21:41 #176967kyoteblueParticipantSounds like a worthy endeavor.
17/08/2022 at 13:58 #176988Mr. AverageParticipantThanks! My main issue is proper storage for completed armies, followed closely by proper sorting and separation of projects in progress. I found some good wide-drawer cabinets from IKEA I’m looking at – nice and cheap. I wanted to go with a full on flat file but I haven’t the thousands of dollars to invest in it. But I do hope that some nice drawer organization followed by a clear-out of detritus will help me get through the lion’s share of it.
17/08/2022 at 14:09 #176989Guy FarrishParticipantSounds great.
Don’t waste too much time on starting the action phase in earnest. In my experience family expectations have a habit of rapidly expanding to fill any vacuum in a house!
I have a daughter where my games room was supposed to be and what used to be my office and fallback games room has so much junk in it now I can barely find the table I know is under there somewhere.
Storage is key. I have figures in boxes lurking all over the place. Always seemingly in the least convenient/accessible spaces when you need them most.
Tell us more as it happens – need inspiration, ideas. :^)
17/08/2022 at 18:36 #177012Mr. AverageParticipantStorage is totally my problem, particularly keeping my many projects separate yet accessible. Sometimes I get the urge to paint fantasy figures, and then historical, and then sci fi, all in succession, and the problem is that then I end up in layers on my workspace. What I want is drawers for long term storage (stuff like terrain projects, mats, and minis projects that are primed but not yet fully thought through) and then a way to stack trays of active projects on top, so that ideally I’d pull out one or two trays at a time to work on and then put back when I’m on the next thing. Vertical flat file cabinets look like the ideal thing. For my unprimed lead pile, I have that sorted on shop shelving already but it needs labeling very desperately. And then my painting table is just way too big for the space I think – it’s using up space I want to devote to gaming. The room isn’t exactly small, as it’s the attic over my garage, it’s just awkwardly organized. And of course I’ve resisted dormering it out until after the new year not only because construction costs are out of control but also because it would mean a reassessment on my property tax I’m not eager to make.
06/09/2022 at 19:27 #177674Mr. AverageParticipantWell, this was a long weekend in the USA, so I took the opportunity to get from Phase 1 to Phase 3 of this project: cleared out all the junk, moved a bunch of inconvenient things I can’t yet throw out into the attic, and threw away a whole lot of detritus. Then I got some good storage furniture for the space and began assembling it. With all the garbage out I realize now that the room is way larger than it seemed. I’ve added a rug to the equation, as well as a comfortable armchair and a floor lamp, and still have plenty of space for gaming and painting tables. We’re well underway!
06/09/2022 at 19:35 #177675MikeKeymaster08/09/2022 at 14:27 #177752Darkest Star GamesParticipantSounds like excellent progress! I soooo need to do the same, just way too much junk and projects I’ll never get to (like tons of 1/72 plastic figures, can’t even remember why I bought them!).
So maybe now you have room for a 3d printer???
"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."
08/09/2022 at 19:03 #177756Mr. AverageParticipantSpace perhaps, but BOY do I have to watch my budget until the end of the year. Printing my first graphic novel set me back. Worth it, don’t get me wrong, but yeah it’s been an expensive year.
09/09/2022 at 14:36 #177766Darkest Star GamesParticipantI feel ya. Have you been thinking more along the lines of a resin or a filament printer?
"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."
09/09/2022 at 20:23 #177770Mr. AverageParticipantResin definitely. I would rather wait and save and get the best quality output I can. I have not seen filament printer output that really looks the way I would want it to.
10/09/2022 at 16:57 #177821Darkest Star GamesParticipantDang, I just gave my Epax 1x away to friend since I can’t mess with the stuff anymore. Would have loved to have sent it your way had I known sooner!
I now have a friend doing my printing. He’s got a Anycubic Photon S and it ain’t bad at all! He got a little grumbly because the 4k version came out just a week after his Mono S arrived, and it is at a lower price! For $189 the 4k version is a big bang for the buck.
"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."
11/09/2022 at 02:10 #177828Mr. AverageParticipantOh, don’t concern yourself on that point – although I do appreciate the sentiment! My main concern is with having toxic and smelly chemicals in the house. My poor cat is curious and I fear lest I should funkify the place and inadvertently harm my feline companion. Or myself for that matter! I do see good things with soy-based resins but for the moment I’m fairly happy to pay others to make my prints for me and keep the chemicals out of the house. I continue to follow developments with cautious optimism.
11/09/2022 at 16:47 #177832Mr. AverageParticipantStorage is in place! Cleanup and sorting of active work is next, and I’ve ordered a nice war table which should arrive in a week or two.
12/09/2022 at 16:00 #177882Darkest Star GamesParticipantNice! Kind of a bummer to have that roof slope there, really cuts down on usable space (and head space!).
"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."
12/09/2022 at 20:59 #177893Mr. AverageParticipantIt’s a larger space than it seems, but yeah the roof slope is a bit of an issue. Sometime down the line I’m going to have the roof dormered out, but for the moment it’s still quite an effective space in there.
20/09/2022 at 05:13 #178236Mr. AverageParticipant
My folding game table arrived, so I set up my inaugural game. For this I selected an old favorite: World at War ‘85.The table is collapsible thankfully, making it more versatile as a piece of furniture. For this game I set it up pushed down to the end of the room for convenience, but when assembled lengthwise I have space on all sides for gaming. I’m quite satisfied!
20/09/2022 at 15:02 #178256Darkest Star GamesParticipantNifty! I got to play in a cold war era Battlegroup game over the weekend myself, though with tragic results for my US Mech unit. Feels good to be gaming again, ya?
"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."
20/09/2022 at 21:19 #178269Mr. AverageParticipantNifty! I got to play in a cold war era Battlegroup game over the weekend myself, though with tragic results for my US Mech unit. Feels good to be gaming again, ya?
Yeah, having a game for the evening is most agreeable! It’s a nice little space in there even with the large table, and I can’t wait to get something set up with minis and terrain!
20/09/2022 at 21:54 #178271MikeKeymaster -
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