Busy Weekend Ahead

This week my friend Gloria was in town visiting her family. We went out to eat one night and had a great time. We also met for lunch on Wednesday. She left for New York City for a wedding and then she heads back to LA. I shall miss her. We always have the best time.

Every night after work except Tuesday night I have gone to the loft and worked on it some. The bed room walls, ceiling and trim have been painted. Last night I painted the first coat on the floors in the bed room and studio room. Tonight I have to apply the second coat to the floors as well as paint two doors. Oh, and its laundry night. Yes, my Friday nights are full of excitement!

On Saturday I will be installing the A/C in the studio and replacing 16 panes of glass. On Sunday I will be putting together a kitchenette of sorts... and I am not quite sure how and what I will do. I have taken Monday off because I will be moving into the loft.

I recently found out I have to be out of the house I am staying at because the owners are coming to work on the house on the 19 June. They didn’t say I had to leave, but I would feel awkward having them and workers coming in and out while I am at work all day. As well, they have a dog and Nora-Grace and Tabitha would not approve.

This is why I have been rushing to get the loft partially finished. I will set the studio up temporarily as a living room and kitchen. The bedroom will be just fine. I will work on the rest of the space while living there. Ultimately I believe this will push me to move faster on having it completed especially since the cats and I are about to be confined to 500 square feet. We are all going to miss the wonderful screened porch and I know Tabitha is going to be quite vocal about it.

Walls have been painted.

Bedroom: First coat of floor paint.

Studio: First coat of floor paint.

Unexpectedly Busy

Business is rolling along. My biggest client is taking up a fair amount of my time though. As stated once before this client is a builder. I have a contract with them to decorate their model home. The only problem is it's taking a very long time to complete construction on the model. There have been some "issues" which I really can't write about, but needless to say it's holding everything up. In the mean time I don't get paid for the contract.

Things aren't too bad though because in the interim they had hired me in as a part-time "designer" for their spec houses and some design related office work. I am learning a lot and there has been so much to do that it's becoming more then part-time. So all in all it's working out.

Currently I am designing a new website for my business because the current one is rather boring and uninformative. I originally threw the damn thing together rather quickly so I would have something out there, but it's time for something more professional.

On top of all this I am working on getting together a new portfolio. Some of you know this from conversation, but for you that don't I have decided to return to graduate school to finish my master’s degree. It's been a very long time since I originally began my masters and quit in disillusionment. Now I am returning to classes at age 40 and I think I finally have my head on straight, figuratively speaking that is.

I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a major in Painting and a minor in Art History, Graphic Design and Photography. Yes, that many minors. I took 10 years to get my bachelors!

Do I paint anymore? No. Do I dabble in graphic design? Not really, but perhaps a little web design is related to that. Do I still photograph? Sure I do, but not in the manner I was trained.

What career do I have? I'm an Interior Decorator. Yes, I know ... how gay. I finally embraced what I enjoy doing and have enjoyed for most of my life. Many, many moons ago I almost went for a degree in Interior Design, but I decided against it for what I perceived as too linear and ridged a degree for such a free flowing individual, such as myself. ;) I am more concerned with the decorating aspects then the drafting. You see I really don't like drawing straight lines. I always looked at Interior Design as "Architecture Light", but I have decided to bite the bullet and return to graduate school for my masters in Interior Design.

I have to make certain this new portfolio is brilliant because I would like to avoid as many prerequisite classes as possible. Since my bachelors degree is in a completely unrelated field I need to show I understand the basics in Interior Design such as elevations, electrical drawings, terminology and the like.

I think I will be okay. My business is related and I have a certain process I go through in every project, which is similar to that of an Interior Designer. I have a tremendous amount of resources at my fingertips via the builder I work with. They are excited for me and said they would help me out. So why not? In the end I'll be able to expand my business.

So here I am unexpectedly busy!