Last year I was very nearly forced to quit the hobby. Find out why after the jump.
My family and I recently moved house to a pad with no spare room/loft space. Combined with the fact that the children are still pretty small and inquisitive we reached a bit of an impasse last year.
If I was to continue in the hobby a solution needed to be found. Because I like to paint watching TV with my wife in the evenings, then the lounge was the only location. However significant challenges presented themselves. Up till now my hobby area had been open plan, left out from day to day. This clearly would no longer be possible as superglue and hobby knives don’t mix with preschoolers, play-dates and dinner guests.
I’m sure I’m not the only one in this dilemma, so let me talk you through my solution as it unfolds. After MUCH consideration I decided on one of those old writing desks. The great thing about these are the fold away capacity and that they lock. The challenge you’ll have is finding on with an underneath cupboard rather than drawers. It means you can access the stuff udnerneath while working.
A few days on ebay (as usual) proves fruitful. £50 later and my basic shell is ready to roll.
Next is basic layout. With limited space you need so be pretty clever. Even more so as it was my intention to fit not only paints, but lamp, compressor an extractor AND my extensive bits collection. Fortunately I’m of quite an organised mind.
In the picture below you can see that my extractor lives at the bottom. You’ll see it folded out later on. Also down there are my boxes of bits.
In the top half is the compressor (left, Iwata smart jet pro) and lamp (right, argos cheapy with a daylight bulb). Top shelf is misc bits, basing, priming, etc.
For basic brush painting the desk folds out. I used some left over scenic blue foam board and created a ‘stepped’ system which pushes back into the belly of the cabinet to store my colours. Neccesity dictates that I’m pretty strict on which colours I keep due to limited space, so I run with about half the colours I used to. Hasn’t affected results too much. You can see I’ve overspilled slightly onto a hanging spice rack in the top half. I lift the lamp down onto the fold out desk top.
The gap in the steps has a purpose (its not just wasted space!). When aribrushing I use a mini extractor. It folds away quite nicely and fits, just, on my desk. The extractor hose protrudes quite a way out of the back of the unit, hence the gap in the painting steps. You can see if you compare the pics either side of this paragraph the gap I’ve left for running the hose. I bought a long hose from ebay (3m) so I can run it to my living room window. Everything else stays where it is and I’m ready to start laying paint down.
And thats my setup. This is one area of life which requires compromise as we get older and have families. For those of us who started out in the late 80’s and are now hitting our mid 30’s mark this kind of problem is common. For every hobbiest who has the luxury of space to create a man cave (Garfy, I look enviously in your direction) there must be two or three who can’t. I hope that describing my set up shows you that not only can it be done, but that high standards can be achieved from a very small space.
Whats your space like? Do you have similar considerations in life? Tell me I’m not the only one!
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I live in a small 1 bed apartment and have similar issues of space. I've got one of the old GW paint stations (the wooden one) that sits on top of a cupboard on which all my painting kit lives, everything else has to fit in a couple of shelves in a cupboard. I can lift down the station and set up a lamp in about 5 mins and get painting, so it works ok. I'd love to have a cupboard like yours to have a setup like that, but that'll have to wait for my next place. Great to see how you do it though, I'll be keeping this post marked in case I ever have a bit more space to spare.
I must admit I don't always, if I'm just doing smoke trails etc I don't bother. If I've got basecoating etc to do I crack it out.
That's a really neat solution, although I'd never have thought to use an extractor when airbrushing.
Glad I'm not the only one who has these issues – and that you like my solution (gotta give the wife a bit of credit.) Anyone else out there have a clever tidy solution, see if you can beat oinks post for length 🙂
Man that idea is really great. I love it, so simple but needed someone to show. Thanks.
that is flippen ace man, that is a nice set up u have. i stort of have the same problem here at my place.
Unfortunately I'm not quite as organised as you are! I do my best to try to help keep things in order, mostly because these days if I leave anything laying around, the wife will tidy it up (read: bung it somewhere never to be found again). My kid is only 1, so currently, I can survive with leaving work in progress on the dining room table (well, survive until the wife threatens another tidy up of course)… and then I've got a number of "man drawers" located about the house where I can store things. I have under bed storage boxes for more used items and models whilst longer term items and projects can be stored in my loft.
I also like to sit and paint / build in the evenings, in the living room with my wife… so to help me paint (after a rather unfortunate carpet + bestial brown incident) I went out and bought a desk top from Ikea plus some castors from B&Q. Now I have a nice table which slides under the sofa when not in use, and also doubles up as our "TV takeaway table!"
I like your set up, because its compact, and works exactly for your needs. If only I was a little more organised (or had a little less stuff!!!)
I always had a large room for my sculpting and painting but recently I just have one portable little box to handle it all, life is like that.
I think your solution is great and for those of us that do not use a airbrush its even easier because we dont need the compressor space etc.
I have a single desk where I keep my computer and hobby supplied. I built a hutch to go on the top, back against the wall and as long as I keep organized, I can keep things out. Luckily, my children are 5 and 10, so they stay out of things now. Your kids will learn as well when they get older.
I love this so much. It is awesome on all kinds of levels. I'm so pleased you didn't quit the hobby and instead came up with a genius solution. Brilliant.