Dreams Really Do Come True

Written By Allie Perry December 13, 2024

What’s one thing you wanted so badly and for so long that it consumed your every thought?

Did you obsess over it? Planning and revising every last detail so whenever you finally got past the “someday…” dreaming and “when I…” wishing, that thing you wanted would be practically perfect in every way?

For me, for years, it was the idea of a new studio. A larger space that allowed me to create more freely, unbound by the space constraints of my old studio that wasn’t “thoughtfully designed” so much as “haphazardly thrown together”. 

I started too many of my sentences with, “Someday, when I get a bigger studio…”

I researched buildings. 

I designed interior layouts for different floor plans. Then I designed alternate layouts for those floor plans, just in case.

I asked the people in art studios or workshops what things they loved about their workspace. What couldn’t they live without? (Lights, lights, and more lights.) What would they change if they could build out their workspace differently? (Put the outlets at counter height and add twice as many as they thought they needed.) What were the things they wish they had space for? (French cleat walls for storage, shelves for storage, closets for storage…did you spot the theme?)

I’d come up with new ideas or revisions to old ideas when I was brushing my teeth or trying to fall asleep. 

I bought furniture and tools when I had no room for them, knowing I’d eventually put all the pieces together to get that bigger studio.

And I drove my husband crazy. Well, crazier than I usually drive him. lol

But in 2024? “Someday” finally arrived! 

I got to move out of my too-small studio where I literally couldn’t move without stopping over things like some life-size version of a 15 puzzle, where my computer was constantly covered in a thick layer of green or blue dust from my polishing compound, and where whatever tools I happened to need were inevitably the ones that were tucked away somewhere making them difficult to find or impossible to use.

I got to move into a space that had plenty of room for the tools I own now and some I’ll acquire later. A space with a dedicated office area where my favorite antique-typewriter-sounding mechanical keyboard won’t constantly need to be deep cleaned. A space that I got to design from top to bottom so there’s a thing for every place and a place for every thing.

Most importantly, instead of suffocating in a space I’d long outgrown, I finally had the room I needed to breathe and create. (And buy more tools. Always more tools.)

It was really hard work.

My husband and I did all of the insulating and sheetrocking and joint compounding and painting and ceiling tiling and floor installing and finish trimming and light installing, not to mention the lugging and lifting and cleaning, and we’re not even done. Things still need to be hung up, bolted down, or closed off, and the punch list still has more than a few items to check off before I can call the project complete.

And, like life, it’s not as perfect as I would have hoped.

But it’s here. And it's mine.

It’s finished to the point where I’ve been able to work in it comfortably for the last few months.

And I couldn’t be happier!