Mrs. Peacock in the Greenhouse With a Box Cutter

In a surprising twist, the first obscure room in our Clue game of a house that is ready for the depredations of Colonel Mustard is the greenhouse---aka the third studio. All of the boxes of tools and supplies that will eventually live there have not yet been unearthed from the garage, but the furniture is set up, the first round of boxes has been unpacked, the surfaces have been dusted, and (gasp) the floor has been mopped! Planned activities for that space include glass bead making/torchwork, silversmithing, jewelry making, textile dyeing, and soapmaking. It is the best space for all wet crafts as there is a tile floor with a drain in the middle of it, and it has a good deep sink with ample countertops on either side. It's also good for torch work as it is already equipped with an exhaust fan.

Unfortunately the motorized shades for it aren't currently working, nor is the exhaust fan so unless you get in there first thing in the morning and turn on the little AC unit asap, it rapidly gets to over 110 degrees and is unusable for anything but taking a sauna. In the winter it'll probably be a different story, but until I get the electrician to fix the broken systems, I won't be making soap, dyeing roving, or working on the torch!

This weekend is dedicated to yet more unpacking and settling in. As soon as I finish this post I am off to the newly renamed sunroom (it's now the fiber studio :-) to finish unpacking yarn, fabric, tools and books. That room is much more temperate (and pleasant) now that we have had motorized shades installed on the east wall (which is all windows) that block 95% of the UV rays and a significant amount of the heat. The fabric is surprisingly see-through making it enjoyable to be in that room and not too dark even when the shades are all the way down. We are putting the same shades outside the two upstairs rooms (Jessie's bedroom and workroom) to help with the cooling up there, and I will eventually put them on the west side of the fiber studio too to both help with temperature and to protect the textiles from fading.

Another improvement on the cooling front will be the installation of a couple of mini-split AC/heating units in the garage (glass studio). We already have one in the fiber studio and one in the third studio that the original owners of the house put in, and they turn out to be a great, economical, low-impact solution to cooling and heating ductless spaces. Sadly that project will have to wait until the garage doors have been replaced either with glass (my first choice for light and an open feeling to the studio, but more expensive and not really a good fit for the exterior style of the house) or new metal ones that are well-insulated.

Now off to the fiber studio to unpack more STUFF!