As if having the Barcade project wasn't enough, I'm starting this effort to make better use of the space on my desk.
So my painting desk (which occasionally doubles as my work-from-home desk) is a pretty intense little spot in terms of what's packed into it. It's the result of years of evolution of painting and trying to make the space as useful as possible. Lately however I've started to feel like it needs a bit of a focused makeover. There's 4 key spots in particular.
First, my paint rack is overflowing. As visible in the bottom right of this picture, there's a box of extra paints that don't fit on my paint rack anymore. This happened due to acquiring more paints than the rack was originally built for. The rack I have now is one that I built myself, which I'm very proud of. The rack is stained a nice color, and doesn't look like I just glued a bunch of leftover wood together. It took me a decent amount of time to build too so I'm loath to replace it. I need to make a decision as to what to do here.
a factor in this decision is the sheer storage issue. The current rack has capacity for 150 dropper bottles, however I have over 200 dropper bottles now. It also has a top surface for putting things on top of which is always full of stuff that's either reference, or in progress, or just inspiration or utility, and I'm always shuffling stuff on that top surface. It also has a flat open space in front for holding various paint pots, of which is always full and tends to not get touched too much. I also end up putting my brush trays on top of the paints in that lower section when I need more desk space.
Second, my computer just takes up a bunch of space. And the size of my current paint rack is sort of an artifact of the amount of remaining desk space after the computer monitor. Now straight up I'm not replacing my iMac. It's a 2010 model and still performs everything I need, and does it flawlessly. What I really need is to have it on an arm mount so I can shift it around easier. There's a big problem though, which is that the mid-2010 21" iMac that I have has no option to remove the built-in stand.
Third, which isn't really a problem, is my lighting. I unfortunately saw this picture of Mathieu Fontaine's painting desk which includes (among many other badass things) a lighting halo. Now I don't know how practical this will be for my space, but I'm curious to see what it would take to build something similar from a dollar perspective. I really do love my lamp, but there's a potential that this light halo could be both better and cheaper.
And fourth? Well there's just a lot of stuff that ends up on my desk. Some of it could be better organized, such as spare brushes and tools. There's loads of other storage beside and under my desk, but the desk itself follows my 90% rule, which is to say that I try to only keep stuff on it that is getting used 90% of the time that I'm at the desk painting. Lots of things have accumulated on my desk again and I just need to clean it up and figure out how there can be a spot that's routinely dedicated to some amount of spillover junk.
So my painting desk (which occasionally doubles as my work-from-home desk) is a pretty intense little spot in terms of what's packed into it. It's the result of years of evolution of painting and trying to make the space as useful as possible. Lately however I've started to feel like it needs a bit of a focused makeover. There's 4 key spots in particular.
First, my paint rack is overflowing. As visible in the bottom right of this picture, there's a box of extra paints that don't fit on my paint rack anymore. This happened due to acquiring more paints than the rack was originally built for. The rack I have now is one that I built myself, which I'm very proud of. The rack is stained a nice color, and doesn't look like I just glued a bunch of leftover wood together. It took me a decent amount of time to build too so I'm loath to replace it. I need to make a decision as to what to do here.
a factor in this decision is the sheer storage issue. The current rack has capacity for 150 dropper bottles, however I have over 200 dropper bottles now. It also has a top surface for putting things on top of which is always full of stuff that's either reference, or in progress, or just inspiration or utility, and I'm always shuffling stuff on that top surface. It also has a flat open space in front for holding various paint pots, of which is always full and tends to not get touched too much. I also end up putting my brush trays on top of the paints in that lower section when I need more desk space.
Second, my computer just takes up a bunch of space. And the size of my current paint rack is sort of an artifact of the amount of remaining desk space after the computer monitor. Now straight up I'm not replacing my iMac. It's a 2010 model and still performs everything I need, and does it flawlessly. What I really need is to have it on an arm mount so I can shift it around easier. There's a big problem though, which is that the mid-2010 21" iMac that I have has no option to remove the built-in stand.
Third, which isn't really a problem, is my lighting. I unfortunately saw this picture of Mathieu Fontaine's painting desk which includes (among many other badass things) a lighting halo. Now I don't know how practical this will be for my space, but I'm curious to see what it would take to build something similar from a dollar perspective. I really do love my lamp, but there's a potential that this light halo could be both better and cheaper.
And fourth? Well there's just a lot of stuff that ends up on my desk. Some of it could be better organized, such as spare brushes and tools. There's loads of other storage beside and under my desk, but the desk itself follows my 90% rule, which is to say that I try to only keep stuff on it that is getting used 90% of the time that I'm at the desk painting. Lots of things have accumulated on my desk again and I just need to clean it up and figure out how there can be a spot that's routinely dedicated to some amount of spillover junk.
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