There were a lot of things we immediately loved about our new house (which led to us placing an offer on it in the first place). The layout was just wonderful, with a small office (big enough for my husband, still currently working-from-home during the COVID-19 pandemic) on the main floor, a roomier kitchen than our old house, and a carpeted family room just off the kitchen, so I could easily see our daughter playing in the playroom from the kitchen. Then there were things we loved the potential of, but which just weren't quite right... yet. And the basement was one of those things.
The basement was already finished (which other houses we were considering did not have), and it had a walk-out to the nice, large, fenced-in backyard. But it was a completely open floor plan, and we wanted to divide the space into an art studio/office for me, a guest room, an additional playroom for our 1-year-old, and a "pantry"/storage space with room for the extra fridge/freezer the previous owners left behind. It took some doing to figure out how best to orient those rooms in the space, but we settled on a layout that worked well for us, and over the course of several weeks, we were able to see our vision realized with the help of a local contractor.
Here are some pictures of what the basement looked like before we had it sectioned off with more walls:
The previous owners had a couch in the space where my new studio would go (which we paid for them to leave behind for us, and which we moved upstairs into the family room). There is also an electric fireplace built into the wall, and two windows looking out on the backyard, in my new studio. I love the natural light! (Though I admit, so far I've only had a chance to come down here to work after our daughter goes to bed, which is after it's already dark out. Thanks winter!)
And here's the room after the contractor was done building us new walls (but before we moved in all our furniture/stuff):
I was really excited to have a single room that could fit all of my "projects" - both studio art and graphic design. In our old house, I originally had my computer all the way up on the top floor, and my studio in the basement, and packing materials scattered in both places. When an Etsy order came in and I had to print notecards, package them for shipping, and ship them out, I had to walk up and down two flights of stairs to gather everything I needed. I created my art in one space, and scanned the artwork on an entirely different floor of the house; I then stored finished artwork in yet another room/closet. (I wrote a bit about trying to figure out how to organize my artwork/art supplies in this blog post.) Then, once our daughter was born and the COVID-19 pandemic shifted my husband to all-online school and then work, we rearranged the house a bit, moving both his desk and my desk down to the basement. I liked having my computer on the same floor as my studio... so when we decided to move, that was one of the first things I tried to figure out - how to make it work so that I could have a COMBO studio/office, instead of housing my artwork and my computer/desk in two different spaces. My BFA was a double concentration in graphic design and watercolor, and a decade later I continue to do both. I combine "fine art" techniques and digital techniques when I design patterns on my computer, print them out, trace them onto watercolor paper, paint them with traditional methods, scan them back to the computer, and resize them for printable notecards. Or when I draw colored pencil artwork using the computer to help find source material of different types of flowers. Even just creating art and then writing about the art on this blog, or uploading designs to Etsy to sell, requires the use of a "studio" and an "office". The more I thought about it, the less sense it made to physically separate these two sides of my work. I wanted a room that would be both (which I've started to call my "studio" IRL just so it's easier to differentiate in conversation from my husband's "office").
I measured all the furniture I wanted to fit into "my studio" and made sure that it would all fit in a to-scale floorplan I made in Adobe Illustrator, before we had the contractor start work on the basement. Once I was sure the room would be big enough and everything would fit (and that it wouldn't detract from other things we wanted to also have in the basement to have my studio so big), we went for it. (Side note: I'm so lucky to have a partner who supports my artwork and my desire to have this big space all just for "my" projects. I felt a little guilty taking up so much of the basement for my studio (especially since, as a new mom, I'm not using it very much these days), but he was always all for it, even when it meant taking the cool electric fireplace/space heater the previous owners had installed in one of the basement walls.)
The room is 21' x 14', and fits 1) my L-shaped computer desk with iMac, HP Officejet printer, and three storage towers of printer paper, photo paper, notecard paper, and envelopes, 2) my easel (which never even fit in the basement of our last house, because it was too tall for the short basement ceiling height), 3) a small desk perfect for colored pencil drawings, 4) five bookcases to organize art supplies and office supplies, as well as extra wall space for organizing gift wrap supplies and other craft supplies, 5) a sewing cabinet (which I don't even use and is so far purely aspirational), and 6) my large folding table in the center of the room, which I use for watercolor paintings and large-scale projects. There is also (hopefully) room for a shelving unit/cabinet for storing large art paper (drawing paper, newsprint, watercolor paper, and unused canvases), but that it yet to be purchased and/or built.
Here are some pictures of the room thus far, as I've started to unpack and organize everything:
It's not done yet - obviously some things are still in boxes, unpacked. I have to figure out what exactly I'm going to do to store my art paper and other art supplies that are too large for the bookcases. My husband and his sister want to build me a cabinet, thinking that would be easier than purchasing one (they are quite expensive, and quite heavy, and we aren't sure how we'd get it down there if we didn't... build one in the room or near the room). So right now the going plan is to wait until the weather warms up, and then hopefully we can build some shelves or a cabinet, cutting the wood to size in the garage or on the back patio right outside my studio, and then bringing the pieces inside and assembling it in the room. But we will see what the warmer weather brings (assuming we ever get any... February in Michigan always has one feeling a bit pessimistic). :)
I'm so happy I got everything to fit. I just know having everything in the same room will really streamline my creativity/productivity - which is, as any parent will tell you, so important when your time to get not-parenting things done is so much less than it used to be before kids! :)
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