Like I told you in my mini blog yesterday the house we livie in at Hiddenstreet in Kopavogur Iceland is built by a bridge maker. He built the house in 1953 and at that time people were very economical and used every material they could get for free. He built the garrage out of thick wood wheels that the strings in the string bridges were rolled up on. He then cast cement in between the wheels.
My brother is a carpenter and when he looked at the garage he said that it looked like it was held together by it´s roof ;) He would have wantet us to tear it all down and build a new one but we did not want to do that.
Well we never used it for our car but as a storage and a few times we hang curtains inside the walls blackening the light out to make a discotheque or a small movie theater.
In the fall 2014 we closed our gift shop that we ran in the main shopping street in Reykjavik for 11 years as well as my silk screen studio down town. Our fixtures and furnitures in the shop were mostly very old carved Icelandic shelfs and teak tables. We sold some of our stock items to another store but still had a lot of it left. As we live in a rather big house and my son has moved out we could stuff all the products we had left in one room (and almost filled it). The bigger furnitures had to go into the garrage.
As the old garage door was leaking and my plan was to make a studio there I talked to my brother the carpenter. He told me there was no point in putting another door the door frame. They had to tear the hole wall down. So he sent two carpenters from his company to tear the wall down. I had made a drawing of how I wanted the front to look like but I wanted a regular door and a big display window instead of the big garage door.
As you can see they didn´t have much work space but managed by doing all the sawing outside on the parking lot.
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I bought a door that I had to polish and paint but the window I bought was white and ready to use.
I just wanted them to do the basic woodwork and I would then later deside what material I would put on the front and I would make the inside of the wall myself as well. (I used to study the foundation af carpentry in the technical college of Reykjavik as well as art school so I can do a lot my self when my health allows it).
Soon after I started to put some filler in the walls and paint a litle bit but my daughter and her friend were eager to help (then 9 years old).
You can see the wood wheels in the wall there.
But this didn´t last for long as I have MS (Multiple sclerosis) and got a relapse that fall. I had to change medicine and focus on my health but the next med didn´t work either so it wasn´t until last fall that I started still another medicine that my health got good enough for me to start working on the garage.
I started to put the insulation wool and plastic in the new wall last fall.
And I went around the corner and insulated the wall laying to the wooden wheel there.
I then put up plaster walls...
and used a filler in every gap before painting them.
I had awfully small space to work on every step of the way as the garage was still full of furniture´s and stuff.
And we even had to keep a few bags of hay for the chickens out there for a while.
But I trye´d to free up some space.
Then I started to cast cement slap on the floor as it was very uneven and rough and my plan was to put parquet on it.
I think I had around 8 square meters to work on in the beginning.
I had never done that before but I just went on youtube and asked the mason in the hardware store for tips.
My father heard it through the grapevines (or somehow) and came running over (my parents live in the next street). But he was eager to help me with this part of the work (my parents being very helpful people).
He also dragged my son over to teach him how to do this. Well my father is an electrical engineer and runs a engineering company and he is very meticulous, a total millimeter man. He went to get his cart and moved a lot of the furniture and stuff to his own garage. The rest he stacked by the walls on one side.
I think we made the floor in four parts.
But the concrete work wasn´t finished at that stage. I also had to make a new edge around the floor as the old one was so rough. I did that myself without help from my father.
When I went to the hardware store for yet another trip there now to buy the wood that would hold the concrete (don´t know the name of it in English) the guy in the store asked me curious if I was a educated carpenter. He was really starting to think that :) I told him that I had the foundation education but not a master in carpentry. But I felt a bit proud of my self for getting the question ;)
Before putting the parquet on the floor my daughter had her birthday but she is born on Halloween. We used the opportunity with the garage almost empty and we made a horror hose with a disco dance floor.
![halloween afmaeli.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmRfzUBwGygEoJhW9UQxL7TBZTFdxhVi6WE2N6gVdNBpki
/halloween%20afmaeli.jpg)
I still had my blue sofa out there as well so they could also have a seat between dancing. And the houe inside was also decorated so they could be inside or go out to the garage if they wanted to dance.
Then I had to try to clean the fake blood of the walls afterward. And I had to paint over some spots again.
Shortly before Christmas it was time for new heaters so be put up so I got a plummer and it was also time for the parquet to be layed. Again I went on youtube to get instructions because though I layed all the hardwood floors in my house with my mother 10 years ago I was doing a different floor in the garage. A plastic parquet that is clicked together piece by piece.
I don´t know how many times I had to move the stuff back and forth during all this process but fortunetly it was less stuff than in the beginning.
My father wanted to make a new electrical installation and put plugs for all my silkscreen devise and stuff all around the small house. While waiting for him to have the time for that I did all kinds of extra stuff. For example ripping the bottom and side walls of an old kitchen cabinet.
It was kind of moldy from moist so I also sprayed some teatree and edic mix on the rest of the wood as I built a new bottom.
Later I put a new counter top on it as well as new sides and a back.
I also put wheels under almost every loose stuff for example my infrared silk screen heater. But there was more stuff left to do for example finish the door frame and the new window. I got instructions by sending phone pictures and drawings back and forth to my brother and my father came once to get me started on it but then I was able to do the rest as well as the door frame my self and finishing and painting over all with white gloss paint.
Then in january I torn the disk in my knee joint (Don´t know what it´s called in English) so I was kind of disabled. But I could pass the hammer to my father while he was installing the new electricity. He also helped me to install the skirting boards on the parquet.
I had stararted to put the furnitures in places I wanted them before we put the new electricity to get a feel for where I wanted the inputs. My father was a bit irritated because of that as he had not so good workspace because of it.
I also had to deside which furnitures to keep and what to give away.
I had a surgery on my knee in march so I was off for a while after that. But I still had some things left to do for example put up cover plates in the sealing and put a new inner door that leads out to the garden as that door was leaking in bad weather.
The sealing was filled with stuff as well so I used the opportunity to give some away, throw some away and move the rest back and forth while working on it.
I was going up and down an alumium stair (not being so kind to my poor knee).
I had the space to saw and paint 3 plates at a time and let them dry and then screwing them up in the sealing while the next 3 were drying. I had also started to move a bit of my workshop tools and stuff from the house to the garage.
My recovery in the knee was not too good but I managed to finish the sealing ;)
I also built a small wall to devide the space a litle bit. But I have the front as a store/gallerie and the bigger part behind it for work space.
So in spring or beginning of summer my father came to help me build a door frame but my brother gave me an old door (actually not so old) to use for the garden door. I had to get steroids injected in my knee so again I was the one passing the tools over to my father.
And of course the frame fitted 100% in because of my father the millimeter man.
And the door fitted also perfectly in the frame.
I was very happy about the door with this hard plastic window in it. I now have 3 big windows in the studio and one big door window and one small door window so it is a very bright space to work in. But I will need to have blackening curtains in every one of them as I need to be able to blacken the room while casting ultra violet light on the silkscreen frames. I have purchased them all but only put up one of them for now.
The only thing left to do in the studio is to put up the sink and as I only have cold water coming in on the wrong place I need to dig a hole from the house to the studio and dig beside one wall to where the drain will be led from the sink. I am also going to lead warm water inside it.
I am also going to clean the wall up a little better where the water comes in now and change it to a gallery wall and have small art installations or exhibitions ongoing. Maybe I will also put up a photographic exhibition some day. For now I am working on an art piece. But I am also doing my handmade designs as well as having some of the remains from my store for sale.
I have a small saw and a heating plate for melting wax as well as a fridge full of homemade elderflower jelly.
Then I have a computer with internet, my light table, glass polishing machine, a sowing machine and all kinds of paper and different materials and tools. (Well I have 4 more sowing machines inside the house, a cutter for cutting thin films connected with a computer, overhead projector, colour photography developer and all equipments for a dark room so I have to pick and choose what to keep in the studio and what to keep in the house.)
I am also using clay but the plan is to make a clay wheel out of an old air fan. Don´t know where to fit it thoug as I have so much stuff in there already.
And my silkscreen tools the crab and the heat press and the infra red heater take a lot of space.
And here is the store part.
And my front window.
I even get gests in my studio now though I havn´t opened it officially.
Our oldest hen comes regularly for a visit when the back door is open.
And my dogs even hang out with me some days but they newer wanted to be there when I was working on the house it self.
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Their favorite spot in the studio is unfortunately taken now ;)
More about what I am working on in my studio that got the name "Verbúðin við Hulduvör" translated "The fishing lodge at Hiddenstreet" later.
M.
Oh my goodness! What a project! It looks fantastic. And damn MS. I have it, too.
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F@#k! Excuse my language Melinda but I´m sorry to hear that you have MS as well :( But thank you, yes it has been a journey with the garage / studio and I am really happy with the outcome and I already started digging a hole in the garden for the water pipe. And as usual my father visited yesterday and saw me digging so he came this evening and dug a lot for me. And tomorrow my husband is going to dig some so the water will be running in the sink soon as well :D
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I agree with F@#k. I am so glad that you will have water running soon! I was diagnosed 20 years ago, but have recently had to begin using a mobility scooter in the house. I live alone and was falling too frequently, so using the scooter has helped me be more safe. This is not the way I had hoped to spend my retirement years though.
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I know it´s also so unpredictable. MS was called the lazy syndrome in Iceland in the old days so when I don´t have much walking energy I joke about it. "Sorry I have the lazy syndrome now ;)" I was diagnosed 16 years ago (at 28) and I used to have 2 relapses per year until almost two years ago when I started to get the medicine Mabthera. No changes in brain or spine since then. But until then I had tried all the medication on the market. One of them "Tysabri" almost killed me in 2009 but I got 6 embolus in my lungs after the first injection of it. I have constant numbness from toes up to my breasts but I have my strength even though I am terribly clumsy and get tired in my feet after walking a good distance. I also have slightly double eysight but it´s amazing what you can get used to. What I hate the most is the tremor I´m dealing with. I have intentional tremor so at times I have a hard time driving a car and I get a lot of spasms in my sleep. But after experiencing blindness and getting paralised in my feet and hands at a time and constant dizziness over long periods of time and shaking like I have parkinsons I feel lucky to be still able to live in a house with a staircase to the front door. I also had a terrible fatigue for a long time but I use Low dose naltrexone (since 2011) and my energy is normal now or even better then normal beside the walking strength. The feet do not lift as they should, like my old doctor used to say; You can see from the shoes of people if they have MS. They always bump their toe in the pavement ;) Some years ago I was really thinking about getting my self a scooter but I am much better today and I force my self to take a walk with my dogs every day though now my knee problem is stopping me. But Melinda do you get any help at home as you live alone? Do you have family members or some kind of ensurance? It´s not good to be living alone falling a lot. Can you take the scooter outside or do you just use it at home?
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I am much older than you. I was diagnosed at age 46 and am now almost 63. I made the decision right from the start that I was not going to take drugs..I am more afraid of the drugs than I am of the MS. I do my best to stay healthy. I quit driving a couple years ago because I didn't have the strength to reliably hold the brakeboedsl down, and that is inconvenient because I live outside of town and I am pretty isolated. My partner died in Jsnuary, and you can't imagine how much I miss him. We did so many fun things together.
My house is perfect for me, with grab rails where I need them and a lift chair to sit in. Jim knew he wouldn't be here for me, and made sure everything is the way I would need it to be to live here on my own.. My house is all on one level with a shirt ramp to get to the back deck and another to get out to the garage and yard. My daughter stops by every morning and helps out with anything I am unable to do.I have one little 3 wheeled scooter that i use in the house and a larger 4 wheel scooter for out in the yard so that I can get the tires dirty without tracking into the house. I have a lawn care service, and someone to come shovel snow. I do hate those leg spasms.
My son lives 150 miles away in Chicago, but he usually comes once a month and spends the weekend with me, and I just got back from staying for a week at his condo in the city. A friend has invited me on a road trip in August. I'm not sure he understands how much work it is to travel with me, so we will see how that goes!
Not sure what the future holds, but just trying to enjoy each day as it comes.
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My condolences on your partner Melinda. That must be a hard loss. But good you have your daughter and son around. I desided to be without MS meds after tysabri and I was doing that for 4 years. I got more and more new leasions in my brain and my doctor told me that because having that active MS I would be limping permanently in 10 years. So I tried 3 more meds untill this one. And it seems to have stoped the action ;) But many of my MS friends in Iceland have chosen not to take meds like you. Well I hope your trip in August will turn out well :D
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Wow you have sure put a lot of time energy and love into the building of this
It's so good your dad and brother have also helped here and there
Not surprised to see the dogs visiting but also your rooster how cool is that
Wishing you all the best for your health fort the future
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Thank you so much JJ. The chicken is not a rooster though it is not strange to think so. It is an Icelandic spiecie very colourfull :)
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Funny that even though you said hen with its colors I thought rooster
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Hahaha :)
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Cool I love it You guys did a great job.
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Thank you @wavemaster :)
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Wow you go hard damn your post so long..i read everysingle word with love ..great post
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Hahahaha! Thank´s @biggy345. It was such a long process so the blog became very long ;)
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Thank you for providing great content on steemit.we always enjoy every reading of your article @mariap
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Thank you so much @alwisyabuddin :)
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Keren..
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love this - thank you for sharing... and I am a little bit in love with that green chair, and your chickens, and your dogs :)
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Thank you @highwings. You are not the only one in love with the green chair ;)
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Very amazing post. Detail oriented with nice pics. Thank you. Keep it up @kingjan Following you now.
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Thank you so much @kingjan :)
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Jajaja no estoy muy seguro de si es por moda, pero daría lo que fuera por darle la mujer maravilla esa que tienes de adorno a mi novia. Esa mujer ama el personaje. Excelente trabajo, me gusta el echo de que no te frene una condición para que puedas realizar lo que te propongas
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Thank you :) My husband @bragih made the wonderwoman cardboard but it was shown at a comic exhibition with a comic he made about an Icelandic wonderwooman or "The wonderess Miss Iceland".
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awww! I love the chickens on the window. :))
Your shop is so neat! I'm sure you will have a lot of customers paying in Steem! :))
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Hahaha! Maybe :D But thank you ;)
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Oh my that is hell of a work you did there! To have a space like that is probably a dream for anyone that like handcraft stuff... to have it all in one place just the way we left it... I would love one :D
I like the dark wooden desks you put there :)
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Thank you! It's an old teak desk and a nother teak table I can drag out and make bigger. I have two other desks like that but not fitting them in here. It's the collectors dilemma :o
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Haha yea... but this one fits and looks very nice :) I'd like one like that.
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Good job! I like as you detailed it step by step and created a comfortable "nest". The hen in the window is so cute!
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Thank you! I love getting a visit from the hen :) She usually comes inside and checks out the garbits can and sais a litle something in chicken langage " gogogogo" before she leaves :)
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