"What does your painting table look like?" Topic

I have a 4' X 2' desk so ideally I should have 8 square feet of surface to work on. Reality is that I have 18" X 8" or less than 1/5th actual space. Does this happen to you? At least I pretty much have to finish one project before starting the next.

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Remanants of Tornado and Hurricane

A friend made the comment a while back, that no matter how big your painting table is, we all end up painting in an area no bigger than a square foot. :)

As though it had been nuked a few times.

A friend made the comment a while back, that no matter how big your painting table is, we all end up painting in an area no bigger than a square foot. :)

Man, that's the truth!!!

Shawn.

My area is just wide enough to fit a paint stirring stick and just deep enough to hold 4 of them.

Well, it reminds of Iraq in some ways…

And not just in the forgotten projects and dried paint tins.

Eric

I believe the best word for mine is probably "dusty"…. :-(

I have a wooden tv tray/stand bought from the second hand store for $2. USD That is my assembly, painting and everything else hobby-wise prep table. :)

Painting table? What table?

I use the end of my game table. More room and better light. My friend comes over to paint every day for two hours and my normal painting nook site only one person. I still have so many projects going at one time that I do tend to take a while to complete things.

I have a 2'X4' table with about 12 square inches open to paint on. Lots of different figures in various states of completion. I think it has been declared a "disaster zone" by my lovely wife!

It looks like an executed search warrant.

Just tidied up

A friend made the comment a while back, that no matter how big your painting table is, we all end up painting in an area no bigger than a square foot. :)

A WHOLE SQUARE FOOT?????

Mine is a 40 year old roll top desk that I hand stained. The shelves are filled with craft store paint bottles, decks of cards, old credit cards for terrain bases, hobby knives etc. The surface has assorted figures in various stages of finish, a bottle of water to clean brushes and a cup full of brushes. The center is covered in wax paper. Actual working space, probably 2 ft. wide x 1 ft. deep.

It looks remarkably like a cafeteria tray piled with painting stuff sitting on my family's kitchen table.

I have a work-room on the porch with good sized table, but in the summer months it's too hot so it inevitably becomes piled with junk toys I buy for terrain projects.

It looks like the bar counter in the kitchen. All my wee pots in a wide, flat Sterilite box, with a smaller one for ink/glue/big, cheap craft paint for basing or whatnot, a jar of brushes & tools, another of water, funky desk lamp, a paper towel. And whatever few minis I am working on immediately.

I get much of my painting done after the wee one is in bed, but I often paint in the day with an eye on her. Eventually I will reestablish a much less portable operation back into my office. Though the setup can be hauled back and forth in a couple of minutes, I have just gotten in the habit of painting in the kitchen, and listen to the TV.

On the upside, I was just today quizzing my daughter on her colors using paint pots. Pink and purple are for some reason quite funny. Must be an inside joke with the dog.

Not proud, but productive.

A few months back it looked like this:

I got rid of the paint rack in favor of a rolling cart that can be put away in a corner or closet. Then I added a display cabinet. So when I'm working on basing up some new 15mm WW2 I just bought, it looks like this:

Mine looks like organized chaos.

Currently like this…

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A more apt description of mine is a storage table that has my paints on it.

Extracrispy, you sir are sick… curse you and your ordered ways…

In all seriousness, I like the display cabinet idea, a bit of inspiration ("see, I can finish things after all!") as you slog away on the latest project/thought bubble/shiny thing.

Mine has a PC as well, not sure if its a help or hindrance.

Cheers

Chris

Mine is chock full of waaaay too much stuff. I have about a 3" x 5" area to paint eventhough my table is technically 3' x 6'. *sigh*

Mine has to be small (we downsized from 5 bedroom house to 2 bedroom condo). It has to be neat as it is in the den where company can see it. It has to stay clean and paint free for the same reason.

My work surface folds up and then tucks away. So i line the surface with shelf paper in case I ever want another use for the desk which is actually pretty nice.

The rolling cart I use is one of these, but mine has lighter colored drawers:

It's really a piece of junk – the drawers fall out of the glides all the time. But since I only use the drawers once or twice per session it's fine for me. Would never buy one of these for something you'd be going into repeatedly.

Ambush Alley Games.

THAT, my friend is an immutable law of the universe.

Mine is a corrugated panel from a file server box I put over a leather Ottoman. My paints are stored in a small box in the hall closet along with the project of the day. I pull them out (rarely in recent times) and paint while watching TV. The table is not very cluttered if only because I have to clean up every night. There is no time for the clutter to accumulate.

I've been to 45thdiv/Matthews house for painting with others in the group. Always a good time geeking out and painting. geeking out? Painting miniatures? Is that redundant?

John

Mine looks like any of the pics posted here … ostensibly a a desk with a decent amount of space, but in practice crowded into a 12-inch square surface for actual work. :)

On a good day:

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Bob

Currently my paint table is inaccessible so I'm painting on my turntable I use for spray under coating. It has gained about a quarter inch in thickness from all the accumulated spray paint and has developed a nice pebbly texture to it which helps hold small parts and figures in place when I hold it in my lap.

Haha, oh boy, yes to all of the above except for the insane ones (yes you guys who have it all neat and tidy like)
Half a big dining room table and feeling squeezed in.
Need to tidy up more often and do less projects at the same time and a real storage system for my paints ( all over the table but have a plastic screws and brickbrack box- squeeze about 50+ paints mainly vallejo into a box that always seems too small :)
Cheers all happy painting

Corollary to Parkinson's Law: mess expands to fill the allotted space.

My working area is about here…

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…with the staging and support area here…

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This is between projects (or, 'I have to get this other piece done first) general ordering phase.

Richard

Here's mine:

Lucky to be able to have it up permanently – still don't paint as much as I could / should.

Mine packs away

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In the army we called the phenomenon of items moving to occupy open space "Stuff Creep". As in you stuff is starting to creep into my stuff. And extra crispy, I had that exact same POS. The drawer would slip down into the one below that, then those two would slip down to the one below that and then those three……etc

One of the disadvantages of painting in work is that I have to pack it away in my locker at the end of each shift. Sigh.

We just moved into our new house in June. I got a whopping 1 1/2 bookcases upstairs and the entire basement.

Of course, the basement had a built-in workbench.

June:

The last month, with my professional painters in training:

… and add two more shelving units for "stuff"

Lol…maybe I need one of those fluorescent 'painting smocks'

Only 3' x 2' at one end of my home office desk, and piled high with stuff so that the things I need are buried, and sometimes forgotten. I paint in 6" square.

On the plus side, I have a mobile tray – a box lid – I use in the lounge for watching TV. I don't paint there – it's just for assembling, converting, greenstuffing etc.

So long as the plastic and metal fragments on the carpet get swept up once in a while, everyone's happy.

@Viscount: Aw, for cute. Reminds me of the early days when my boys got their first Ral Partha paints. That seems surreal now.

(Oh, and that switch is NOT code! :))

My "Painting Table" is a work bench from where I worked and I took it home when I retired. Right now it's mostly cluttered with slot car stuff. I haven't painted minis in quite a while, but I could easily enough. In less than ten minutes the slot car crap would be off and the painting area doubled in size: