Rejuvenation Projects Blog

We had the cabinets installed and finally moved into the studio.  Here are some shots of the finished project.  Here are some close-ups of the beautiful lights from Rejuvenation:

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The carriage house had a very old pedestal sink that we loved, but it didn’t fit with our new plan.  We wanted to have some storage under the sink and the pedestal would take up much of the space.

We wanted to find a deep yet small sink, which was really difficult to find.  We finally located one online and when it arrived it was cracked in the corners, so we had to wait for another one to arrive, which it finally did.

It was installed and so was our facet and it turned out beautifully!  We only have a few last finishing touches before the studio is completed.

Since we are all done with the drywall and the painting it is time for the floors to get ground down and sealed.  There is already existing cement that has interesting layers of epoxy and laminate, so we are grinding them down to make a blank slate.  Here you can see them ground clean:

And here you can see the nice new finished clear coating. We like how imperfections show up through the clear coating showing the age of the space from the interior.  The beams have a similar effect and so will our beautiful Rejuvenation lights when they are installed.

Although we insulated the space, there is pretty warm weather here in the summer.  There aren’t too many days that hit 100 degrees, but there are some.  Thus we installed an AC and heating unit.  In the interest of space, cost and sound we chose a wall mounted unit.  Here are some pics of the new unit.

Since the insulation is in and the plumbing has been reconfigured, it is time for the drywall.  We decided to keep the vault in the ceiling and leave the old rough beams exposed.  Here are some photos of the drywall in progress:

It is amazing how quickly the dry wall goes up.  The plaster is so amazingly smooth and makes the wall perfect, it kind of reminds me of cake frosting…

We started painting the wall, but hated the color we picked!  So we went back to Dunn-Edwards and selected Calico Rock and as it went on the walls we knew it was the right color.

The last exciting thing of this week is that our lights arrived from Rejuvenation!  We couldn’t have been happier to see the boxes and had to open them immediately, although we are not ready to install them.  Look how beautiful they are!!

We are continuing to make progress on the garage (soon to be studio).  Since all of the wiring is in place we are starting on moving the plumbing.  We are moving a sink that is currently right at the entrance to the studio.  We are going to move it to the other side of the washer and dryer so that it is out of the way.  Also we are adding insulation, which should really help out in the summer and winter months!  Here is the old sink and some of the completed insulation work:

The opening for the garage is carriage style with sliding doors.  To make it better insulated and more secure we will be adding a wall behind the carriage doors and will leave a framed opening as another exit or air source.  Here is the old view of the opening and the wall that has been constructed:

We started the demolition of the interior of the garage (soon to be studio).  The garage is almost 100 years old and we think it is unlikely that it has been cleaned in 10 years.  There were “left-overs” from many previous owners, including the largest workbench we have ever seen.  Here is the pile of items we ripped out of the empty garage:

We also updated and added the electrical wiring in the garage.  Previously there was very nominal wiring, as the garage was only being used for storage and for the washer and dryer.  Since most of the artwork West Studio provides is digital, we do most of our work on computers, thus we need to have a lot of outlets.  We installed a brand new sub-panel to accommodate the new electrical requirements.  We also we ran new 20 amp romex lines for wall circuits 20, for the lighting we ran 15 amp romex on different breakers.  Lastly we ran a dedicated 20 amp line off the subpanel for the AC and heating unit.

Soon we will be moving the plumbing around and start adding insulation.  We are really excited to see the next phase.

We recently purchased our first home a 1915 craftsman house in Bungalow Heaven, which is a historical district in Pasadena, California.  It is filled with many beautiful and not so beautiful craftsman bungalows built from 1900 to 1930. Our old house has lots of original charm with some “interesting” upgrades that were completed throughout the decades.  The one part of the house that was not touched since it was built (besides exterior paint) is the interior of the garage.  We run a conceptual art studio, West Studio, out of our home.  Since the garage entrance is quite small and we already have a carport we decided to utilize the extra space in the garage to house the studio.  It will be the first renovation project on our house, though eventually we might return our kitchen to a craftsman kitchen (in the 50′s someone thought ranch style would look good) and perhaps our bathroom.

We are planning on making the following changes to the garage:

• Remove debris from the garage
• Add electrical
• Add insulation
• Add drywall
• Paint the walls
• Add in lighting
• Add storage
• Refinish the floors
• Add in an air conditioning/heating unit

We are hoping to have this all completed within one month.  We will be doing some work ourselves and having most of the work completed by Garage Envy.  We can’t wait to have the studio completed!!