the studio

Wedding season is over now and I realized I never really showed you my studio I was working in all summer. This spring we spent two months here every night, slaving away on this tiny 250 sq. foot space. I have a basement too, but we just left it ugly. The after photos were taken by Yan Photography, and you can see more of them in Issue 1 of Kinfolk. I kept the space fairly minimal because doing flowers is messy, and its a small space already so I need all the space I can get. David and I did just about everything ourselves here. We learned a lot, and it pretty much burnt us out on ever doing house projects again. But we did it all for about $1,200 which is pretty amazing.

We started by ripping up carpet that was glued to concrete and had about 12 years of plumber dust in it. We ripped fake paneling off of wall and the counter. We patched holes in the plaster walls. We tore down a water damaged floating tile ceiling and flourescent lights. We drywalled, laid reclaimed hardwood flooring in the front of the shop and laminate in the back. We tiled the counter and had a concrete top made for it. We built a platform for the cooler and moved one in and then out once it froze my flowers....and a new one back in. We built the pipe shelf in the front, and with help painted the mural wall. We made the giant chalkboard to cover up the ugly side of the cooler, and trimmed it with pieces of our old fence which is also the trim in the space. We painted every surface in the space with three coats of paint. We built my work table, trimmed the windows, built the lights out of exhaust fans I got at a junk yard. We brought loads of vases to the space and hauled away enough garbage to fill a dumpster daily...finally we put a bell on the door.

And?

I love it. I never would have survived the summer without it. When I got it I thought I was jumping the gun a little bit, but I had no idea that I would be spending my whole summer there. It is the perfect little place and is in the perfect location, I couldn't really ask for anything better.