From WC to WOW: My Tiny Gallery Transformation

mers(72)

Published in

#ladiesofhive

Words

604

Reading

3 min

Listen

Play

IMG_20260917_142334 (1).jpg

A friend once said : “How on earth did you turn a WC into a gallery?”

Dear everyone,

We used to live in a row house with a garden that had 4 bedrooms and a 100 stair-steps to get to the top. You can imagine a house like in Amsterdam with 7 levels from the garage to the top floor. We stayed there for about 14 years. As we grew older in that house , the maintenance got to be tedious as I started suffering from my feet and back issues. We had to prepare the house before we could travel to Andalucia. Maintenance means I had to hire someone to help me clean the whole house and prepare it for the wintertime. That was the time we decided to relocate , find a smaller flat without stairs.

Some people have a library, others have a gallery. I just thought I needed both, but …..I didn’t have a spare room with many walls since I relocated to a small apartment six years ago, so I took over the WC and redecorated it.

IMG_20260917_140159 (1).jpg

Two charcoals I commissioned for my dog "Ako" , the one on the left was when he was 2 years old, and on the right when he was 13 years old

I have collected many arts that are mostly inexpensive, some big and small as well as a collection of pencil sketches that I did some 20 years back. I also commissioned my nephew (my younger brother´s son) @gremayo some charcoals of my rotti named “Ako”. He is a digital animator and is also on Hive but has been out of Hive platform since the pandemic. He also made various tutorials as well as posted fictional stories on Hive, you can check out his account.

A sketch I did of my rotti, two months after we put him to sleep forever.

IMG_20260917_141144 (1).jpg

This is a pencil sketch of "Nikolai, the Husky" I did that I gifted to my friend who owned him.

Mostly, arts I prefer are copper etchings on architectural buildings in Vienna. I scoured some from the Saturday flea market near Naschmarkt in the city. You only have to search for them and sometimes, one gets lucky to find some beautiful pieces.

I sketched this arabian horse inspired by an image I saw from a magazine

My WC measures 120 cm wide x 234 cm long, it has two perfect walls where I could hang my collection. And so on the right side I began hanging 20 pictures with various arts such as oil paintings, aquarelle, copper etchings, prints. On the left side, I chose to hang 16 pencil sketches, charcoals and other related drawings plus a couple of etchings that has no place anymore on the right side.

IMG_20260915_075105 (1).jpg

I also added my collection of colorful wooden painted plates in rustic designs that reminded me of country homes in Austria. The Jesus icon had been painted by me. Moreover, on top of the door, I hang the red willow style ceramic plates that also depicts rural motif. As you can see, I have added a couple of bookshelves inside the WC, they are mostly my craft books, garden books and cooking magazines with recipes. I am totally happy that I now have unused space for my stuff.