After returning from Houston Quilt Market/Festival, unpacking boxes of stock and then getting even MORE delivered, I stood in the one tiny spot of bare floor left in my studio and wailed “I can’t move in here! I can’t breathe! I can hardly think!”

Thomas heard me. He picked up some scratch paper and a pen and plotted out my salvation: new shelves. After working more than a decade at Home Depot he knows a thing or two about building things, and with the Thanksgiving week holiday coming up (he’s now a 4th grade school teacher), he decided to take action.

Here are some “before” pictures of my studio space. I was too embarrassed to show much more than this. It was truly horrifying.

And here are the “after” pictures! What you don’t see is me hugging Thomas and telling him how much I appreciate all the work he and the kids did for me this weekend.

Now that the studio shelves are finished (and filling up fast!), Thomas is building a set of bookshelves in the hallway so I have a place to move my library. The old shelves were falling apart under the weight of the books, and I’ve got more for the shop on order from various publishers.