We've been busy busy busy getting ready for our store opening on May 11th!  Once the floor was sanded and cleaned, we let it dry and sealed it with waterproof concrete sealer.  Originally we were going to paint it with a concrete epoxy paint, but while reading the instructions on the epoxy paint, discovered that we could not use epoxy over the concrete sealer.  Good thing we read the instructions!

After some debating, and a few unsuccessful phone calls to paint stores, we thought why not paint the floor with Chalk Paint®?!  Yes, Chalk Paint® can be used on floors and coated with a laquer that is especially designed to be used over it.  So we gave it a try...

So far its a work in progress!  We're blending two colors (Old Violet and Paris Grey) to get a sued/textured look.  The white cracks will get painted next.  Two quarts covered about 300 sq ft nicely!  Stay tuned to see the finished results...

Oh, and we've been busy painting chairs for the studio!  Each chair is being painted in a different color of Chalk Paint® - check out these gorgeous colors!  And the painting party was a lot of fun too!

Adventures in mosaics!  In addition to working on launching Artistic Home Studio and Boutique, I'd been working on creating two mosaic tree murals for Lincoln Elementary School in Burlingame, CA.  The school wanted to dress up two drab exterior walls on either sides of their multi-purpose room doors.  In the fall, they began a fundraising campaign, selling tile leaves and flowers which were then personalized with a student or family name.  After I glazed and fired the tiles (over 200), I began the mosaic project.

First thing first: smash LOTS of wine and beer bottles!  I thought it'd be cool to incorporate pieces in the trunk and branches.

It has been an exciting week!  It started out on Monday when the lease was signed and we obtained keys to the new store and studio!  We are very excited to be residing inside the former "Pillow Park Plaza" now called Park Street Plaza, in the heart of downtown Alameda, CA!

Right now we are targeting the weekend of May 11th for our opening - just in time for Mother's day and the Park Street Spring Festival.  Stay tuned for more details...



Here are some "before" pictures of the space, when it was being used for storage:

Clearly, we used our imaginations to envision all its potential!  Once the landlords cleared all the stuff out, we discovered underneath the heavily stained, 20-year old carpet that covered the entire floor, was 20-year-old mastic carpet glue, solidified on very old concrete!  Our biggest challenge: what to do with the floor!  After much debate, pricing and research, we decided to grind the glue off with an industrial sander (thanks, Home Depot!), then seal and paint the floor.  In the process of grinding the floor, we created a mess of SLUDGE that needed to be cleaned off.  Here's the floor during this process:

Imagine the fun of getting this cleaned up!  2 wet-dry vacuums, a couple of buckets, 3 adults, 2 kids, scrub brushes and mops later, here's the floor after 3 days:

Although it looks ugly, it's actually quite clean!  Now we have to let it dry out for a week before sealing it.  In the meantime, there are plenty of other exciting things to do!