our new studio

A few days ago, my landlord - who, by the way, I haven't actually seen in over a year - sent me a lovely email informing me that rent was going up. Substantially and immediately. Blarg. [seriously, fellow, are you not aware of all the "for rent" signs around town?]

So I had to look for a new place, fast. And I found one! I now have about three times the space I had in my old studio, so there's room for us to grow, yay!

I've been packing my old studio and cleaning the new one all week, so things have been extra crazy. The new place is kind of a mess, but the price was right - it's just going to be a lot of work to get it to the point of being my super cute dream workshop.

It has lots of amenities that shoemakers dream of, such as three (3!) walk-in freezers and four shiny chili cauldrons:

This is the 'before' shot of the main space. The windows have a nice Chicago skyline-ish view - I can see the Hancock and Trump, but the Sears is blocked by Circuit City.

Here's the exterior shot. I have basically the entire second floor of this white building. This is the view from the Circuit City/Midtown Tennis Club parking lot on Elston.

I met my new next door neighbors today. They're awfully sweet, except for the part where they mentioned that my space reminds them of the Saw movies. Yeah, I have a lot of work ahead of me.