New floors in the Studio

Yippee!
Henry Sanding Floor came today - a day early. Not that I'm complaining because that just means the floors in the studio will be finished a day earlier. I found Henry on Angie's List, and that's how he's listed, Henry Sanding Floor. He is the same one who did the floors in my bedroom. He's good, he's nice, he's reasonable, and I don't have to do it. I like him!Here they are working away. I asked if I could take pictures, and I think he thought I was joking, but no, I wasn't.
I came home to find this:
Those raggedy walls weren't so bad when the floor was awful too - but I think that I will have to tackle that project sooner than expected. I will also have to paint sooner than expected. Ugh. Sorry, to see the "before" picture you will have to go to a previous post - one where I took the wall down.
The to-do list for the studio:
1. paint the walls white. (the second room was a horrible army green. It took four layers of primer to get rid of it. Half way through that project I realized I was taking the wall down, so I didn't finish that wall. Bummer. Now I've got to put at least two more coats of primer on it.)
2. paint the windows and the floor molding glossy white.
3. TAKE VERY GOOD CARE, NOT TO GET PAINT ON MY NEW BEAUTIFUL FLOORS.
4. Go out to L and J Metals, in Reading, PA to see if they have any fabulous cabinets that would hold lots of supplies. This place also sells flat files for about $100! For those of you who don't realize what a big deal this is, new flat files go for about $500. - minimum.
5. Do the molding around the door way. I'd like to put this to a vote: do I paint the molding white to match the walls, trim on the windows, and baseboards? or do I stain it a dark wooden color like the original. Now, I've heard there are a lot of you who are regular readers, who are not commenting, like my cousins? (Rebecca?). I would love it if all of you would weigh in on what you think I should do. :) (Somewhere in the near future, computer keyboards will need to come with a real smiley-face, don't you agree?!)
6. Oh, and somehow in the mean time, move back into the studio, make a bunch of artwork so that I can be ready for my show that opens in November.

Just as an aside: I had to go have my picture taken for the Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA). I'm in the fellowship program, and it's with them that I'm doing the show in November. They hired this amazing person to do portraits. A few years ago, he bought a church for $400,000. - !!! He lives in it! It is amazing! The first floor is a gigantic studio, the second floor is his living space. It came with two apartments in the back. He rents those out and that's how he is making a living and is able to be a full time artist! Wow, it was incredible. (sigh)

In other news:
Fred is growing like crazy! Here he is the day I found him,

here he is today. Look at the size of him! The pictures are not a good comparison, because one is closer than the other, but just sort of look at the him on the bowl, and then compare the size of him to the bowl in the next picture. I have to say, Fred is fascinating! I am mesmerized when I watch him eat. He loves parsley. Today I added dill, and he just chomped down on that too. The size of his frass has gotten larger too. eew. But he is a vegetarian, so that's not so bad, I guess. It's really cool to see him in action.

And finally; I may not change my staircase around after all.
Since I have a triplex, I wanted to live in the first two floors and rent out the third. It would be so much easier to live on the top two floors and rent out the first, but, heavy equipment… belongs on the first floor. I really wanted to have a staircase that lead straight up to the third floor, and then have access between the first two floors differently. I think I mentioned this, but I'll just reiterate: I had this great construction guy come in, and he explained to me everything that would need to be done, and it was a lot. I would have to rip up the ceilings on the first floor so that the beams and such would be reinforced etc. It would have been about a $40, 000. - job. :(. (the keyboard needs a frowny-face too). I asked him to come by again today to look at plan B: adding an exterior staircase starting on the porch that would go to the third floor, and plan C: adding a spiral staircase from the studio to the second floor. Hmmph. Neither of these is ideal. So what I think I might do is just rent out the third floor as it is, and live separately from the first and second floors for a year, and see how I like it. But I have to think about it. In the mean time, we discussed having my bathroom redone! oh yeah! He won't be able to do it until November, but I think it will be worth the wait. This contractor is really great to talk with because he explains everything that will happen. I told him I wanted fuchsia tiles for the bathroom floors and he told me I would have to pick them up myself, because he would never be able to live down picking up fuchsia tiles…