Balzer Designs

Treasure Hunting

I have always said that there are three hobbies I enjoy:

1. buying art supplies
2. organizing art supplies
3. using art supplies

(Sometimes I do a little too much of hobby #1.)

As it turns out, renovating a house has some similar activities to engage in, particularly when it comes to the buying part.  In some ways I suppose this isn't surprising. This house is simply the largest arts and crafts project I've ever done!

Because I have an old Victorian house (built in 1890) I have been visiting lots of super fun salvage shops up and down the East Coast.  I thought I'd share a few photos with you.  I love the craftsmanship in a Victorian home and I've been searching for ways to restore the home I bought to its previous glory.  These photos are a smorgasbord of old house parts.

I don't know about you, but all of these house parts make my imagination begin to swirl about what could be. It's actually the same feeling I get looking through an art supply store.  All of the possibilities are there.  What will you do with them?

Do you want to know the saddest part of all of this salvaging?

We didn't buy a single thing!  Overwhelmed by choice, I suppose.  We lusted.  We touched.  We fantasized. But in the end, we couldn't pull the trigger.

Sigh. Perhaps when the house is a little further along....

Thanks for stopping by!

Update on our Home Renovation

Happy Friday!  I wanted to share some photos from our home renovation.  As you may recall, we purchased a house in August 2018.  Great bones, and exactly the location I wanted, but it needed some updating.

We began work on the house at the end of November 2018. 

We started in the basement, which had a lot of issues.

It was wet -- like pools of water.  Part of the floor was dirt.  The stairs were falling down.  There was huge pipe sticking up out of the ground.  The floor was uneven.  And then we discovered...the foundation was crumbling.  So, we had to put in a new foundation wall.  The crew built the framing for it...

...and then poured it from above, through the kitchen floor.

As soon as the basement began to come together...

...two things happened:  (1) The main water line to the house burst due to the cold.  It was originally put in in 1931, so at least it happened (a) when someone was in the house and (b) before the basement was finished.  When Spring comes and the ground thaws, we'll have the front lawn and the sidewalk dug up to put in a new water line.

And (2) the crew began demo on the rest of the house.  

They carefully removed and saved all of the beautiful wood doors and trim to put back into the house later.

There were definitely days that left me hyperventilating about having paid for a pile of rubble.  Or for having paid people to turn a house into a pile of rubble.

But opening up the house and bringing it down to the studs has definitely changed my feelings about the design of the house going forward.  It's amazing how plastic a house actually is.  For instance:

Should the wall go back up between the kitchen and the dining room?!

(The answer is no, as it turns out.)

Today -- mid-February -- the house is down to the studs. The floors are mostly gone.  You can see from the first floor into the third floor attic and it just looks like a big pile of sticks. 

My contractor says it will be a six month period of putting it all back together again.

This is a scary and exciting adventure.  My first house.  My first renovation.  I guess I'm a "go big or go home" kind of gal!

Thanks for stopping by!

Best of 2018: Painting, Food, and More

For the next few days I'm going to be sharing a series of "best of 2018" posts:

• Best of 2018: Painting, Food, and More
• Best of 2018: Art Journal Pages
• Best of 2018: ScanNCut and Stamping
• Best of 2018: Blog Posts

To compile these posts, I've read back through an entire year's worth of blog posts and picked my personal favorites to highlight.  Enjoy!

Painting -- I really did a pathetic amount of painting this year.  I hadn't realized how few pieces I completed until I starter looking through the year's archives.  Hopefully there will more painting in 2019.  But in the meantime, enjoy these ones:

Giant Tar Paper Face

I Still Believe in America

A Landscape Painting

On the other hand, this was a banner year for decorative baking.  In the food category:

Halloween Sugar Cookies

Cupcakes for Halloween

Mini Gingerbread Houses

Screenprinted Cookies

And in the miscellaneous category:

My Modern Quilt

My Traveler's Notebook

Painted Dresser

Thanks for stopping by!  More to come!

Kraftex Bowl

I recently participated in Cloth Paper Scissors "Road Test" section, where they ask artists to make something with a particular product.  They sent me a roll of red Kraft-Tex. 

I had experimented with Kraft-Tex a few times before.  It's a fascinating product.  It's paper, but you can wash it and sew it like fabric.  It has some similarities to leather in appearance.  It doesn't tear and it takes paint easily.  A lot of people use it for bags and journal covers. 

If you know me, you know that I always want to do something different.  I wanted to make something that took advantage of all of Kraft-Tex's unusual qualities.  After sitting and thinking for a while, I decided to make a decorative bowl -- creating the bowl shape by stitching.

I used my Dramatic Floral stencil to create a pattern inside the bowl, but I left the outside plain.

I love the way it turned out!  You can find step-by-step instructions as well as other artist's experiments with Kraft-Tex in the current (and final) issue of Cloth Paper Scissors Magazine!

Thanks for stopping by! 

My Painted Dresser is Done!

I shared the progress of this epic dresser redo a few weeks ago.  At long last, it is done!

After painting it, I waxed it:

And I added new knobs:

And it all came together!

I love the painted drawer sides.  I know that only I will see them, but they make me happy!

All in all, I must confess, I think this dresser turned out even better than I imagined or hoped!

Just in case you were wondering, I snapped these photos in my new house -- which is totally empty and clutter free.  So, it makes for a perfect spot for photography!

We won't be moving into our new house for about a year, so I'll have to find some space for this beauty in my apartment until then!

Thanks for stopping by!