You do know that you can’t create without making a mess, right? So why bother cleaning if you’re going to just make another mess? 

At least that’s my philosophy in life.

My house is my art studio, a place to pile stuff, where I groom dogs, where I make stuff or paint stuff and, sometimes, where I actually make art…

This little 50m2 apartment has to fit all that in it.

As a result, I can’t see my kitchen table top for months at a time. When I want to cook I have to clear crafts, paint and occasionally tools off the kitchen bench and stove top.

In summer, since I don’t really have time to do much other than groom, I usually keep the house tidier. Soon as I get busier with grooming, I pack away all the paint tubes, varnish spray cans, the sewing machine, the unfinished works of art, and clean the house. Once almost everything but the daily living stuff is put away, its easy to clean.

I just run a broom or a vacuum cleaner over the floor, mop it, and voila. Its pretty much done.

But its too early in the year for that, so for now I only sweep or mop when it gets embarrassingly bad, or I can no longer quieten the voice my mother implanted in my head as a child which hassles me to do housework.

For the last couple of days I’ve been doing online stuff as well as building a side table for grooming. I’m using all scrap wood I’ve collected over the months, making something not so pretty but functional. It’s where I’ll put my scissors, clippers, blades, and anything I might need to reach for while grooming a dog. When its finished it will have a couple of handy hooks, get painted a pretty colour and have a cover to protect it from the weather.

Till now I’ve been using a metal trolley I found at the rubbish bins a couple of years ago. It’s missing the top but the two lower shelves are intact. I think that while I have power tools out, I’ll make a top shelf for it. So far, I’ve been spreading a clean towel over the existing middle shelf and laying my tools on that. However, now I bought a bath for the dogs, I will move that to the wet area to hold shampoos and other bath accessories. Hence the need for the patched together little bench/side table.

When it’s finished, I will share a post about it, but trust me… I am no carpenter, so I don’t bother sharing instructions or how to videos. You do not want to do things the way I do them! I just screw this to that, measure then measure again another 2-3 times, and still get it wrong sometimes, cut this or that to add as I progress along a path that is totally unplanned and for sure completely the wrong way to do things.

It works for me. I’m not fussy. I like using recycled materials and making things from scraps. I also don’t care if something looks wonky. It has character!

Better get back to my messy work.

z