Lofty ambitions

We continue the compulsive tour of the rooms on the painting list with the bonus room - the loft.

The loft in my condo isn't simply a wider space with a balcony at the top of the stairs to the second floor, but a full size room. Eventually, I'll put a comfy chair or two up there, but for now, it is the home of the desktop computer, the (as yet unfinished alder wood) armoire in which the table linens and quilts live and my grandmother's cedar chest.

It's a bit empty.

Let's do the four corners tour:

From the top of the stairs

 If you look diagonally right when you reach the top of the stairs, this is what you see. This little alcove - 80" high and 92" wide - is crying out for closet doors. As you can see, the vacuum cleaner already thinks it is a closet (it normally lives in the bedroom closet, but escaped for the day).

The high speed internet connection in this room is in...the closet area. I have no idea why. Maybe so you can put the computer in the alcove, then close the doors to put it out of sight? Eh, I'd rather have the closet space.

By the way, remember that alcove is 80" high - it will be important later on.

Looking the other direction

This next picture is taken from the corner of the alcove, looking back toward the stairs. Here you begin to see the oddities of painting multiple colors on walls in an open concept space.

(Note the pile of stuff at the top of the stairs - if I put it there, I have to either take it downstairs or trip over it. Very effective system. The basket holds the little stuff that goes down, so I don't drop it)

Yes, there are still a few boxes of stuff, mainly office supplies, that aren't unpacked. At this point, I'd say it's plain I don't need them.

Oh yes - the colors. The living room is the green; why they painted the back side of the balcony wall green, I'm not sure, except that the small wall next to the stairway is visually part of the big green stairwell wall when you are looking up from the living room, so maybe they didn't want to break it up?

The wall color in the loft is not nearly as pleasant as it looks in flash pictures. it's more of a muddy golden tan. Same carpet here as in the bedroom.

From the corner across from the stairs.

This view looks out over the balcony wall to the living room. The hallway leads to the bathroom and bedroom.Those white curtains? They cover the huge window above the patio door. The window faces pretty much due east - wonderful morning light.

There are no overhead lights in the loft; the small lamp you see here and the desk lamp provide the only direct light in the room, at least for the moment. I've a couple of floor lamps that may come upstairs if I do get a comfy reading chair for the loft.

The fan helps blow the warm air in the loft back down to the living room. The temperature upstairs is generally 5 degrees higher than in the living room. If you zoom in on the desk in the first picture, you'll see the clip on fan on the hutch. Ceiling fans by next summer...

Last corner - from armoire

Again with the still packed boxes. Full size file cabinet in the corner. The smaller, white cabinet actually holds sewing things. If I can work my way through the projects it holds, I can get rid of the cabinet.

On the side of the shredder you can see my easy mover's guide. Any box with a blue tape "x" went up in the loft. Anything with a masking tape "x" went in the dining room. Those with no tape were stacked in the sewing room. As furniture came in, I sent them to the appropriate room.

For the most part, it worked well.

High ceiling

Remember the 80"? This shot shows you where the ceiling finally meets the back wall in the loft...another 80" above the line of the alcove. Yep, that back wall is close to fourteen feet high. When you look up from the living room, the ceiling seems to go on into infinity.

Unfortunately, spiders like to hide up there. But they are no match for a dusting head on a telescoping pole. I can reach any corner, no matter how high.

It almost makes me want to dust more often.

Almost.

One of the artists who exhibited in our sanctuary a few months back does beautiful multi-color fractal-type acrylics. Her canvases tend to be huge; I've started a fund to save up for my favorite, as these walls are a perfect place to showcase it.

I'll need some more lighting, though.

Last shot - over the balcony to the living room.

That little red wall hanging is my sole Christmas decoration this year. I miss everything else; I may just put it all up after the painters are done on the 27th and leave it up until Twelfth Night.

The stairs down from the loft are on the right in this picture; the walls that jut out are for a closet. The front door is on that window wall on the other side of the closet space.

All this babbling is by way of having a secondary documentation of my "before" pictures, in case the computer crashes before I can print them. It's not much, but it's home. Once the painting is done I can go about decorating: I've not done much this last year because I knew I'd be painting and wanted to wait until the walls were fresh to figure out what else I want.

Oh yes...sample paint went on the living room walls tonight, and in the sewing studio. One out of four (studio, two different possibilities for the living room walls and a possible accent color for the fireplace all went on tonight) works, but I know now what to use for the accent wall, and I can pick up one final sample for the living room and I think I'll be set.

Or I just won't care anymore, which is a distinct possibility. Why yes, I'm over thinking this; what clued you in?