Even the most prolific artists experience mental blocks from time to time. You know what this feels like. You sit down in your creative space, ready to begin laying down a new track or putting paint on canvas – but nothing seems to come out.
You noodle around aimlessly for a while, but you eventually give up and decide that maybe today just isn’t your day. It’s frustrating when you want to create something new and can’t quite come up with anything that seems worthwhile. Maybe you even blame yourself.
Instead of becoming frustrated with yourself when you’re having difficulty producing new things, we’d like to suggest an alternative. Maybe you’re having trouble creating because your space isn’t actually in the proper condition.
TV host Alton Brown famously said, “Organization will set you free.” In your creative space, freedom is exactly what you need. If your mind can’t roam because your work area is cluttered and smelly, don’t blame your mind – blame the space.
Once your studio is set up in a way that’s conducive to keeping you in the proper headspace for creation, we can guarantee that the work will begin to flow again – and while giving your work area a proper cleaning might sound like more effort than you can handle, it doesn’t actually have to be that bad at all as long as you have a straightforward step-by-step plan. In this guide, we’ll explain exactly what you need to do.
Getting Started: Remove and Clean Your Equipment
Before you can give your creative space a proper cleaning, you’ll need to have the ability to access that space – all of it. To do that, you’ll have to remove all of your tools and equipment. When you do this, take the time to thoroughly clean or dust everything.
When you’re done with this project, your studio will be extremely clean; you don’t want to undo your hard work by filling the room with dirty equipment. If you have a lot of expensive tools, you might want to cover them with a tarp or some contractor bags to ensure that they won’t collect more dust while you’re busy cleaning your studio.
Next Steps: Clean Your Space from Top to Bottom
With your equipment removed from the room, you can get down to the real task of giving your creative space a real cleaning. It might sound like a cliché when you hear the phrase “top to bottom,” but the truth is that this is actually the most logical way to clean any room.
When you clean the ceiling and walls, some of the dust will fall to the floor – so if you save the floor for last, you can be confident that the space is truly clean. Here are a few room-cleaning tips that require minimal money and relatively low effort.
- You can clean the ceiling, walls and any hard flooring with a rag and some soapy water. In most cases, there’s no need to use any expensive cleaners or harsh detergents. If you have a hard floor, you may want to follow up with an additional polish or wax to protect the wood or tile.
- If you have furniture in your studio, you can clean it with a steam cleaner that has an upholstery attachment. If the furniture is particularly musty, try leaving it outside in direct sunlight for a few hours. The ultraviolet radiation from the sun can neutralize a wide variety of odor-causing molecules. Just be warned that sunlight can also cause some fabrics to discolor, so don’t try this with furniture that’s valuable or fragile.
- If you have carpeting in your studio, rent a carpet cleaner from your local supermarket. Don’t forget that the carpet will be slightly damp after you clean it, and the excess moisture can damage many types of equipment for art and music. Leave the windows open for a while and use fans to increase the air circulation until the carpet is completely dry.
Preparing to Resume Work: Bring Your Equipment Back
After you’ve finished cleaning your studio, it’s time to bring the equipment back in. This is a good time to make sure that your system organization is as good as it can be. If you don’t have enough storage space for your equipment – or if you don’t have the right storage – that’s probably why your studio became cluttered in the first place.
Try grabbing some do-it-yourself shelving from your local home improvement store. Shelves are easy to install with a drill, a level, and some drywall anchors, even if you’re not a particularly handy person.
Alternatively, you can buy a few metal racks. They won’t cost as much as you might think, and they’ll save you a load of time in the future when you’re looking for that one obscure tool that’ll make your project absolutely perfect.
Wrapping Up: Three Easy Ways to Keep Your Space Smelling Nice
Now that you’ve given your studio a proper top-to-bottom cleaning, the final step is to maintain it by ensuring that it remains a breezy, comfortable space where ideas flow freely. Follow these three simple tips to keep your space smelling fresh.
- Don’t ever smoke in your studio. If you’re a visual artist, the smoke will linger on your work. If you’re a musician, the smoke will damage your equipment. Either way, it’s a bad idea. Grab a Geek Bar and keep it in your studio for those times when you need a little pick-me-up.
- Consider buying a HEPA air filter for your studio. It’ll filter particles as small as 0.3 microns, which includes many odor-causing molecules as well as pollen, pet dander, bacteria and other allergens. It won’t just improve the smell in your creative space – it’ll also help you breathe more easily. Consider buying an air filter with an activated charcoal stage for even better odor prevention.
- If you can’t afford an air purifier or require your creative space to be silent, buy bags of activated charcoal from your local home improvement store instead. When air passes through the bags, the charcoal will pull the odor-causing molecules out. It’s surprisingly effective because of activated charcoal’s extremely high surface area. Simply place the bags around your space and let them do their job. Put the bags in direct sunlight every couple of months to refresh the charcoal.
