Windy and Snowy Days in Colorado

The Winds have been pretty fierce in Colorado lately- especially in the country. This is a picture of the roads on my way to the studio.

This poor little Reindeer family fell down from the winds and couldn't get up. Hopefully they will recover soon.

My Studio part 4

This is the Living room of my studio/gallery-with Mark Jones sweeping up after installing the quarter-round. Mark is the instructor for Trinidad State Junior College and I don't think we could have pulled this off without his great expertise- Mark can build just about anything.

This is a picture of Justin, Jake and Caleb- TSJC students taking a break and eating some Christmas Cookies that I made them.
This is a picture of the living area - I refinshed the wood floor.


Same thing.......... we added the little gas stove which has worked well so far although it has blown out so I will need a back up- probably a space heater that will kick on at 50 degrees or so.
The original picture of the kitchen- I will try to get a better picture of the kitchen for a comparison later.

This is a picture of the studio- to the right is with some very disgusting carpet that took forever to remove. The glue was on so thick that I had to buy some adhesive remover and use a razor scraper to get it off so that I could paint it- (picture in the middle) I tried to touch up the paint in the studio and it didn't match so well so will have to do that one again.

The Purple Room

When I first walked into this house the walls were so dark that I couldn't even tell what color it was- it truly was like walking into a cave. The picture on the right has been lightened just a little so you can

actually see the color- basically the boys from Trinidad patched the holes in the walls ( and believe me - there were many- the house looked like a giant piece of swiss cheese) then they shot the walls with texture and I painted them gray- I painted everything light gray, I just wanted the house to seem a little airy and give the feeling of expanse throughout. The floors were just a board substrate so I just painted them - I think I will probably get some kind of area rug and of course will need to get good lighting. This room will be a gallery area as the whole west wall will work extremely well for showing paintings.

The East Bedroom

The East Bedroom was one of the hardest rooms to renovate-- it had been wallpapered and then painted over the top of the wallpaper. Also the ceiling had huge globs of dried joint compound where someone had textured and didn't know what they were doing. One plus was the wood floor; although it was painted dark brown and as I was to find out later- another gray paint layer was under that as well. The top picture is pretty much the end result of this room- although the quarter round is not completely installed yet. The middle picture is halfway through the project- after ripping off the wallpaper -thanks to Jake and Justin with the Trinidad State Junior College class. I painted Hy-Tech barrier coat ( an aluminum paint) and then topped it off with Hy-Tech ceramic beads mixed into the paint- I had a feeling there was absolutely no insulation in the walls so felt that it was worth a try to add these products to my walls- it definitely couldn't hurt. I then rented a sander from Bervig Hardware in Alamosa and sanded the floor- it was really kind of an afterthought because I was thinking about just painting the wood floor in this room since I didn't want to go to the work of stripping it since it was painted. But I just couldn't stand it-- I had to see that wood floor under all of that paint. The wires in the top picture are places I need to add an outlet and I think I might add an electric baseboard heater to this room as a backup if or when the pilot light blows out on my little gas stove. Tomorrow I will show the purple room.

The Renovation Begins

Coni has been bugging me forever to show pictures of the inside of the house/ studio project and I was afraid to because I thought that anyone viewing these pictures would think that I was absolutely NUTS for attempting to renovate this house but now that I am close to finished I feel more comfortable. I must confess that during the summer while painting the outside when I would have to go inside for any reason- I would get very discouraged and wonder if I was NUTS for doing this. It has taken alot of my time as I have done alot of things on my own with the help of my parents and the Trinidad State Junior College building trades class. It has been approximately 6 months since the beginning of this project and as you can see from the pics above it was a mess. The top picture is the living room /kitchen area - I had to strip out that disgusting vinyl which had three layers underneath another top layer and quarter inch plyboard. The middle picture is of the bedroom that I decided to make into my studio- it is on the north side of the house- The carpet had to be stripped- well we'll talk about that later......

"Shaw Lake"

When the fall was at the height of it's glory I knew that I had to get outside and do some painting. I had been working rather hard on the studio but when the colors call I have no choice but to stop and paint. My mom and I went up to Shaw Lake- located above Big Meadows Reservoir and we painted this scene. What a glorious day it was! It seems even more glorious as it is now trying to spit snow outside my window. I've decided to start posting before and after pictures of the inside of the house so stay tuned. It's sad, instead of painting icy branches against a backdrop of soft dark evergreens, I am painting quarter round that will trim up my floors... yawn. But it is almost over!