Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Living and Working in a Live Work Space.


We moved into our loft/condo in June of 2010. It was a fairly quick process in that we started looking in April and ended up closing the deal and moving in June. Because I have my studio space in my home, it was important that I 'set up house' and my studio rather quickly. As it happened it was about 2 weeks of organizing, packing, moving, unpacking and not painting.


I wanted to get back to work as quickly as possible so I organized the space as best I could in a hurry. Unpacked boxes and put things in their new place. I even made use of the few screws that were left in the wall to hang artwork thinking I could get to it in time. 


So here we are three years later and not too much is different from when we moved in. I'm still not really happy with the 'flow' of the layout. Thanks to the builders vision there was certainly not much choice as to how I arranged the living area, working area, pet area etc. We Have beautifully large windows (which I love) but very limited wall space for hanging artwork. This is a bit of a problem as on occasion I have clients visiting to purchase my paintings. I want my space to be a reflection of the beautiful spaces in my fave decorating magazines where my artwork has appeared.


Living and working in the same space can be crazy and chaotic but it provides a lot of freedom as well. Much time is spent preparing to paint, searching for supplies and cleaning up afterwards. After all my work table also doubles as our dining table. 


So I've set a goal for myself to tackle this design dilemma once and for all. I know there is much I could do with my live/work space to make it more conducive to creativity and visually stunning. I've made myself a binder to keep all my tear sheets of design inspiration, ideas, and paint chips. I'll be updating some shelving in the studio and I'm finally getting work together and framing some pieces for an art wall that I've been dreaming of for years now.


This will be a big job but one that I'm finally ready to take on. Although I have no problem making decisions about paint colors in my art, and I think I've done a fairly good job of making use of the space we have, I think it's time I called on a professional for help. Stay tuned.