How my studio found me! part 2

................ So, we left off from yesterday with an appointment to go see a warehouse space.
Now since I was sick for almost a year! I did not have a healthy art bank account, and my idea was to just rent something for 2 months in the summer.

I was surprised when the nice preschool teacher called back to say that her husband owned a row of warehouse buildings and that they wanted to show me a space.
What could I say? I had to check it out and I figured I would just say it wouldn't work out, since I really had no money.

The next day I met Mark the building manager who was a really nice guy.
 He opened the door to this long narrow room with only a small path to walk through it. It was filled with old, crumbly, smelled like mildew boxes from floor to ceiling.
The space was being rented by the local movie theatre and they were using it for storage. It looked like long abandoned storage. Boxes were old and falling all over each other.
I couldn't even tell if the space had windows, it was like walking through box-hoarders!

We walked through the first long room, down the hall into a small second room, still filled with boxes. Mark turned to me and said, "Which room would you want?"
I said, "Um. Well, I guess the first room so I wouldn't have to walk through that mess to get to the second room," knowing I was probably not taking it anyway.
"Um, so how much is it?"
This is the question that was going to lead me to say I couldn't take it, or so I thought.  Mark turned around and made a phone call.
"My Uncle must like you, he said I should empty the whole space, and give it to you."
I didn't know what to say.
"Um, well, how much is the rent?"
"Well since the space needs cleaning and painting, nothing for the first months, then 100 a month after that."
WHAT? 100 a month? I could do that. I could figure out 25. per week!
It was too good not to do it.

I sent the landlord/preschool teacher's husband a heartfelt thank you letter. I went from recovering on the couch to scrubbing that space. My whole focus changed. I was looking to my future.

Turns out my landlord wanted to help someone else who was starting a new business!
He is one of my angels.

For the next months, after the boxes were removed, we cleaned and scrubbed and primed the walls. We pulled the smelly carpet off the floors and scrubbed them over and over.
When they were finally clean, I primed them and painted them with floor paint in a soft grey.
And then I painted that block wall red.  Million Dollar Red was the paint name.
 (that's the wall that is getting painted today!)
This is the studio after a good long scrubbing............

This is the first picture I took after I finished cleaning and moving into my studio.

LOVE!

That is how my studio found me.

I still cannot believe that I made ONE phone call and ended up in this wonderful space. 

I feel very very blessed.

Doesn't that make you wonder what you should ask for?