I don’t have a studio. When my husband and I were at an art museum last weekend, a painting caught my eye, and I moved across the room to stand in front of it. I laughed when I realized what it was. “It’s the artist’s studio.” Unfailingly, I am captivated by paintings of artists’ studios.

Our surroundings are so mundane to us, we rarely think they’re interesting enough to describe. “Who cares what my living room looks like,” one might think, “or where my chair sits? Nobody!”

And yet. I am drawn to paintings of artist’s studios. When I visit friends I only see online or talk to on the phone, who live far far away, I am always delighted to see their homes. A person’s space gives a glimpse into how they spend their time, what tools and materials they keep at hand, what’s important to them, how their world is different and the same as mine.

The closest I have to a studio is the armchair in our living room. It’s where I read and write. The chair is the Ikea round-backed Tullsta, upholstered in a natural cotton color. It sits next to a south-facing window the sun pours through in winter. The floor beneath it is oak planks, glossy and honey-colored, which are beautiful against the white trim and charcoal walls. A shag area rug like snowy wool covers the floor to the right of the chair, and the fireplace is over my right shoulder. In front of the chair is a natural cotton pouf that cats curl up on.

For a long time, there was no table next to the chair. I kept my backpack nearby and reached over to pull notebooks and pens out of it; my coffee cup sat in the window sill. I never had a place to set stuff down. I’d shoo the cat off the pouf for my laptop or book, glasses case or pen pouch, or lapboard with my journal when the kettle boiled.

Now I have a small wooden end table, maybe 16″ by 16″, painted white. On top of the table are my active books: a paperback of Zadie Smith’s Dead and Alive essays, Nicole Krauss’s The History of Love, also in paperback, and my Boox e-reader, which is how I originally began the The History of Love, but my son brought me his physical book from college because he felt an e-reader wouldn’t do the formatting justice.

My grey felted wool pen pouch is on top of my stack of books, zipper open from where I pulled out the white Waterman fountain pen I’m writing with. Its ink is a deep holly green. Still in my pen pouch are three more fountain pens — white, black, and turquoise Pilot Metropolitans, smooth and metal and ovoid on both ends — with medium and fine nibs. They are filled with Gravity Wave (teal), Oxblood, and Ancient Copper inks. When I peek inside, I also see my cork-backed stainless steel ruler (6″), Pentel Graphgear 1000 and Kerry mechanical pencils, Sakura Pigma fineliner pens with black archival ink in 005, 01, 03, and 05 sizes, and a white eraser that used to be a rectangle and has been rubbed down to an oval.

Also on the table are my water bottle and phone, face up; our daughter is driving home today and I want to see if she needs us for anything.

The little table has a shelf a few inches above the floor that holds things I want to access, but less frequently than the everyday stuff on top. On this shelf are a paperback of Kafka’s complete stories, Gentle by Courtney Carter, Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones deck of writing prompts, and a beautiful plum purple Fabriano softcover notebook, journal size (A5). I collect words and their definitions in this notebook, 3 per page, with a straight line drawn between entries using my ruler.

Both notebooks in my “studio” — the plum Fabriano and the black Leuchtturm1917 I’m writing in (modified B5 composition size) have perfect paper for fountain pen ink: 80g/m² weight, ivory (not white) paper that doesn’t bleed or blind, and a smooth texture that facilitates a perfect glide of nib across page.

On the other side of my chair, my lapboard typically leans against the wall under the window. Its surface is a smooth bamboo, a shade paler than our honey floors. The underside cushion that lays on my lap is a natural cotton color. I’ve had the lapboard since I began working at Automattic in 2014. The pad is falling away from the board. I need to replace the whole thing, but I fear I won’t be able to find one I like as much. The size and shape are perfect, and I’m pretty attached. I drove to our local Barnes & Noble and bought this lapboard — a portable desk! — soon after I started my work-from-home job.

When I began this post with pen and paper, our gauzy cotton curtains were flung open to the day, and big rectangles of sunlight slanted across the floor. A a kitty curled in one of the sunbeams that warmed the shag rug. Now, night is here and the curtains are closed. Through them, I see the white Christmas lights my husband put up this weekend twinkle on the stair rail. Added to the side table is my glasses case. My all-day glasses are in it; I’ve switched to my computer spectacles. I tap tap tap on my laptop, which now sits on top of the ivory pages and holly ink of my notebook, on my well-loved, well-used, falling apart lapboard.