Transforming a Secret Artist Studio (in My Backyard)

Last year I bought an old house in the French countryside and I've been renovating it. It's been a project that has really stretched me as a person and taught me so much about myself. It's a lot of hard work, discomfort, problem solving and as I am transforming this place I feel like I myself am being transformed. It feels like the house is a mirror of what is happening inside of me. As many of you know I focused a lot of my attention on my back and front yard this spring and summer while the weather was nice. But the crown jewel of my backyard is this old, tired studio that I feel is always staring sadly back at me when I look at it. It's asking me to give it a bit of love. This studio has so much potential to be really anything. A secret space to make art, a separate tiny house, a place to think and dream up new ideas, or all of the above. Finally, this September, I felt the time was right to give it that love. What I'm going to share with you is the month-long adventure I went on to make this place unrecognizable. Here's how it looked to start. The obvious place to begin was by removing objects in the studio and clearing it up. That included an old sink connected to nothing, an old shelf, old curtains that were absolutely covered in cobwebs, and the heating system that was quite old and looked more than a little dangerous. Don't worry, I'm not throwing it out. It has a lot of charm, but it wasn't usable. And by we, I'm referring to my friend Eva. who came all the way out here to help me. We could all use an Eva in our lives. Really quickly. Who are you? Who are you? I'm trying to introduce you to the people watching. Is that cool? Who's watching? Hello. Oh, she's nervous. Any words of wisdom to people of the world? Sometimes the wisest thing is to be silent. That was a good one. I have nothing to add. Next, we began applying a stabilizing solution along the walls so that they wouldn't crumble so much and be more solid for a fresh coat of paint. The solution is invisible, but a super important part of the process. Then we spackled holes in the walls. Day three began with a trip to the hardware store to get more stabilizing solution. We also tried a first attempt at doing the ceiling cover so that the ceiling looks less ugly with the exposed insulation. You got this. That's too long. No, that's too long. Alright, that did not work. Two centimeters? So that makes us at 130. Test number two. How are we looking? That's too long. That's too long. No, that's too long. I cannot be bending down like that. Why is it you've done? No. Okay, third time's the charm? No, no, but pop it in there. No way. So we shifted gears. and painted the base of the beams black while I thought about a new way to approach the ceiling. This would be the start of a recurring pattern throughout this process. Progress, I find, usually comes in the form of trying a variety of things, failing more than once before something eventually sticks. Day four brought two new characters, two Russians, Phil and Nicole. Phil actually took my frame-by-frame course and offered to come help me out with his girlfriend. Is it weird being here? Three years ago, someone would tell me that this would happen. I would go crazy. It's a funny thing, I feel myself so comfy here. Phil sanded down the doors while Nicole cleared out the dust and I painted a second coat of black onto the base of the beams. We also taped out and painted the metal frame on the outside. The theme of things going wrong in the first few attempts continued to burgeon. Of course it was. I have no idea what I'm doing. I've never done any of this before. What I'm trying to do is add wood trims to the window frame to freshen up the look. That sucks. The best you can do is try and have fun as you figure it out. Everything is going wrong. Okay, all right, all right. I know, it needs to happen. The music is like giving me power. We'll figure out a better method. I hope so. It doesn't look safe. Good ideas. He's a little too short. Oh, God. Finally, it was time to try putting them up. Music is just... That was the moment when he realized. Once again, we'd have to revisit that later. I'm not losing this fight. Hey ChatGVT, I'm fucked. Can you come up with something? At least the paint outside was looking good. Always park the disappointments or setbacks or frustrations of the day. Rest. eat well, and start fresh tomorrow. This looks so good. And when we entered today, I felt the smell of the wood and the whole house, and I was just instantly brought back to the memories of my childhood. I think a lot of people who have had experiences with houses in the countryside have this exact, like, oh, I remember this smell. Day five was going to be the biggest day yet, painting day. With the help of two more friends, Nico and Ade, we tackled it as a team. What happened to you? Three things happened here. One, the paint I got was a very intense kind of concrete paint that began hardening within 20 minutes, making it virtually impossible to work with. The second thing is that I realized I did not like the color at all. It did not match the online photos. And the third, it was destroying all of my painting equipment. I needed special materials I didn't have just to clean this paint off. Honestly, it was feeling like absolutely nothing we were trying to do was working. Was I beginning to feel defeated? Yeah, yeah I was. Fresh morning, fresh day. My only option was to keep going, keep trying things, keep chipping away at this project. Nothing ever goes according to plan. I guess it's why I've always loved phrases like amor fati or memento mori, the things I've talked about over the last few years, because Just such good reminders of the bigger truth, the bigger vision, even as you get lost in the day-to-day struggles and worries of whatever it is you're doing. Somewhere deep into this project, I just accepted that this was going to take complete and total perseverance and about three times as much time as I thought for an amateur like me to figure out all the different pieces. So fueled by coffee and a continuous stream of new friends, I just kept going. From the fig tree, they're coming out so good. With each new day I made progress in some facet of the studio. Dad and a long time subscriber named Isa came and helped me give the walls a fresh attempt with the new paint and it came out excellently. Food tastes like three times as good after a good few hours of work, I'm telling you. Always eating in my videos. I was getting my ass kicked by this project. but it was going to take a lot more than that to get me to give up. Lisa helped me a ton with the ceiling. I was blown away by the generosity he and everyone up to this point was showing me with their time and effort to help me make this happen. I want to tell you guys about something really exciting I'm working on right now. The exciting thing I want to talk about has a little something to do with this. I'm filming this facing this way to not give away how the studio looks because I'm... Almost done with it and it's looking so good, but I don't want to give away the full reveal just yet Some of you will remember that I released amor fati clothing and rings for me It's just a really good reminder because in Latin it means sort of a love of your fate So for me, it's all about kind of embracing everything that life brings including Moments that can feel like setbacks, right? I'm mentioning it right now because I am actually going to be bringing them back I have more details that I will share about this towards the end of the video. My mom has been making and selling jewelry for years now and she's been working really really hard to revamp her website and that has only been possible thanks to Shopify. who are the sponsors of this video. Listen, I know that I always seem like I'm up to some crazy new project. It's just how I naturally operate. And I think I was heavily influenced by my parents who I watched build their own businesses throughout my entire childhood. And it's a lot of work, but it comes with something super valuable. And that is Freedom the freedom to run your own schedule to not have to answer to anybody to make something of your own Shopify provides such a powerful set of tools that help make it easier to start Manage and grow your business whether that's online or in person like for example Insights into where your customers are shopping from they also make it really easy to connect with Facebook Instagram and YouTube to sell on social media, manage your operations and even collaborate with other brands. Listen, I think it's a no brainer to utilize social media to share what you're making and reach people. And I guess the proof of that is that I'm doing that right now, right? You can start your own free trial right now by going to shopify.com slash Nathaniel Drew or scanning the QR code that's on the screen. Thank you, Shopify, for sponsoring this video and making this whole project a reality. and I'll have more details on what my mom and I are working on at the end of the video. Alright, let's dive back in. Time for some payoff. How does that sound? A little bit of payoff for all the work that's gone into this? Yeah, I think it's about time. The days blended together. I was bit by bit. Every detail and every facet of this space was examined, accounted for, and given a bit of love. I was entering my third week of this project, and I knew all of the hard work was eventually going to be worth it. I'm gonna speed through the next two weeks which were dedicated to detail work that is super time consuming. Okay, today is September 28th. We are nearly a month into this project because I began on September 1st. I've done everything I think I can inside. Vacuumed the space. I'm gonna use my secret weapon and that is to bring the magician, my mama. She's so good at turning spaces to life and giving them, you know, right now it's an echoey. empty building but you're actually not giving me a real challenge this is easy yeah there you go so she's gonna help me make it uh feel a little cozier alive literally a white canvas yeah yeah exactly let's do this thing we remove the tape and clean the windows i feel very very lucky i know the world's a scary and confusing place and people can be mean but they can also be so kind generous and loving and that's what I feel I experienced this last month. I embarked on a project that I could not do alone and it usually starts with one innocent little phrase. I have an idea. Let's try putting it over here. Wow! This looks great. Plane with a different layout. I needed so much help to make this happen and I had my ass kicked in the process too. You look small. Painting easily? Okay. But after a month of planning and then another month of actually doing the work Seeing it all come together was the coolest feeling And I feel this space is a reflection of me In this day and age when things move so fast I think this project was a reminder to me that as long as I am doing whatever I'm doing with heart, that's pretty much all that matters. Okay, this space is looking amazing. I'm about to share with you the before and after. I'm so excited. Yeah, it's so cool compared to where this all started. But I did want to just briefly say thank you to you. You're welcome. For helping me so much. Thank you to dad. Thank you to all of the friends, everybody who came through and helped me with this. This was a really challenging project for me. It took like three times as long as I thought. I had so many kind of psychologically challenging moments where my patience was really, really challenged. But it was so cool to have so much support from my community. It just made a really big difference in moments where I was not wanting to give up, but feeling like I was... overwhelmed with the amount of things that needed to be done and that's the truth those are how projects worth doing go yeah nothing is smooth it's life it's life you have a really beautiful website that you've been working on that i will link to down below you have a youtube channel of your own where you share your own process working on the house and the jewelry that you make is all handmade all one of a kind the jewelry is not for sale yet we're still sorting out a lot of things behind the scenes but if you want to be the first to know about when anything gets launched anything gets released her jewelry my jewelry you know the stuff that we're gonna do together yeah yeah exactly we have planning the way you find out is by signing up to her newsletter which is available on her website or my newsletter which is my sub stack and i'll leave links to everything down below i think i need to get a good sleep that's that's i think where i'm at at this point a good job Good job. Thanks. So finally, here are the before-after moments that I've been promising since the beginning. I feel amazed as I look at this, how far it has come, how clean and bright and inviting. I love the komorebi of the space, which is of course the Japanese word for the light that shines through the trees and filters into the studio. Always dancing and swaying in the wind. I love how the giant windows face out into the backyard. It gives a very panoramic view. The ceiling is so much cleaner. The space is full of its imperfections. I'm an amateur DIYer after all, but I think that adds to the charm. If you're interested in seeing more, I have been chronicling my entire journey out here on my channel and on Substack, where I write essays similar to these videos. Please consider subscribing and liking this video if you enjoyed it. It actually helps me a lot. Thank you for watching, and I will see you soon.

You can start your own free trial right now by going to https://www.shopify.com/nathanieldrew

My mom's website → https://www.atelier363.com
My mom's channel → https://www.youtube.com/@AnArtistsLifeYT

My (free) newsletter → https://nathanieldrew.substack.com/

Second Channel → https://www.youtube.com/@nobackupplan
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/nathanieldrew_/
Online courses → https://www.nathanieldrew.com/onlinecourses
Get a free trial with Musicbed, here → https://fm.pxf.io/nathanielfreetrial