Renovation.. Unsteady Progress

A few weeks into June, with nothing other than a new wall accomplished, I admitted to myself that having the room ready for July summer classes was a bit ambitious.  Could we have held classes with a boombox on the carpet?  Sure.  Was that the first impression of the new and exciting space I wanted to give my clients. Uh, absolutely not.

So, onto painting.  But wait!  First the other studio location has to have a pipe burst!  And flood the entire space!  And ruin lots of things!  And require insurance inspectors and summer camp last-minute changes and new rugs and potentially ruined marley!  Because chaos!

::deep breath::

So that was a fun weekend of clean-up and tears and then realizing that a pipe bursting during summer and destroying a bunch of old costumes is not the worst thing in the world, even if it is inconvenient and a pain to clean up (imagine if it happened a week before recital and ruined THOSE costumes?!).  It is also just a bit disconcerting to find your entire space covered in water.

But, back to the matter at hand - oh yeah, I was supposed to be painting, not mopping up water.

And look, a new window!

It turned out, when picking out window sizes that this size was the best one to go with because any bigger was a big jump in expense. 

Making progress...

To Do List
X Connect spaces
X Build waiting room wall
X Waiting room window
X Paint waiting room
X Paint dance room
- Install dance floor
- Furnish waiting room
- Buy sound system
- Ballet barres in dance room
- Order and install mirrors

Next up... flooring!

Blank Wall Makeover

I painted one of my studios this summer and hadn't gotten around to putting the posters back up. I guess I have been enjoying the simplicity of the bare walls. I felt like the wall above the barre was looking a little too bare, so I thought about what to do with the space:

• Put the posters back up - our posters were getting faded and ragged, so this idea got thrown out - aside from looking for new posters.
• Have someone paint a mural - might be expensive and I couldn't decide what to put up.
• Some sort of special wall the students could help make (handprints, signing the wall)... 

I wanted something large and graphic but not so distracting that it would take away from class.  I also didn't want to spend more than $100 for supplies and /or labor.  I starting searching craigslist and eBay for any posters or large graphic. That's when I came upon this:

Wall stickers!  And available in a ton of colors too (found on eBay).  I decided to go with white so that it wouldn't be too distracting.

It was a little daunting when it arrived - the sticker comes in 8 pieces, each about three and a half feet tall by one and half feet wide.  The instructions said to tape all of the pieces on the wall first, but I decided to do one piece at a time.  I chose the one labeled "A" so I was at least going alphabetically.

SOBuzz: Getting Ready for Fall... Painting!

For a studio owner, getting ready for fall classes means a lot of things... piles of paperwork, phone calls and emails to return, attendance sheets and class signs to prepare.  For me, it also always means painting the studio! It seems like every year I end up painting one or more of the rooms.

Maybe it's just me, but I get very anxious when selecting a new color to paint the studio. Perhaps it's because I will be spending the next two or three years (if the paint is good) staring at the wall color, who knows?  Although I do fine choreographing formations, I'm not a very good visualizer of the end product.  I need something more.  I used to get a bunch of little samples, tape them to the wall and deliberate for a week, asking everyone who walked by whether "summer white" looked nicer than "classic beige".

But wait, there's a solution!

My favorite tool to use before painting is Sherwin William's "Color Visualizer" tool.  You can upload a picture of any room and "paint" using their colors.

Now I can digitally "paint" my rooms and change them around as much as I like before purchasing paint!  Hooray!

If you are still having trouble choosing a color or narrowing your choices consider the following: