You may know how I started working from my home, then occupied a spare bedroom and eight months ago moved out of that room to a small studio space at around seven minutes driving from my house.
Well that space became too small, very fast, as I added products. What was worse: it had the most horrible TL lights and no faucet or sink, which forced me to schlepp around with buckets of clean and dirty water tow flights up and down.
Then I hired a new colleague to join our team (in order to free up more time for creative processes), and I found myself nowhere to sit when she was in. So now, bucket schlepping, standing and headaches from the light situation, it did not take up too long for me to decide when the building I am in offered me a 74m2 office space with large windows. There was lots to be done there, here is what I did on a budget:
We started by painting the weird magenta/fuchsia walls green and that has become the highlight of the entire studio.
We went from this;
To this: (this is freshly painted, it dried a bit lighter)
I had a connection installed to the mains and drains and put in a modest modular kitchen from IKEA, so that I can always add additional parts when I have more budget for it. I was gifted a faucet and sink by the building manager. In order to make the water accessible for different abled, and to make filling up buckets easier, connected a garden hose from below that you can pull out when you need it. I highly recommend this kitchen unit if you are looking for something in your dye studio. It comes in white and black, and is made from coated steel so it is easy to clean.
As I write this the upper unit that is resting on the work surface is hanging on the wall so we have more space. I painted a strip above the work surface with chalk paint so I can write on it with chalk markers. The leaf decals are from Aliexpress and are not functional, just pretty and they pull the space together with their matching green.
What else do we have?
A designated packing area where we package your orders and weigh all the pre-packed dyes and mordants. I did not build a wall or anything, I just cut and painted a plasterboard and hot-glued it to the packing benches. That way you are not constantly looking at the boxes and bags stored underneath.
A lab space where I conduct my research and take pictures for the blog and the website.
The dye corner where we can run the large pots and pans for larger projects and workshops. Do you see that gorgeous vintage kimono? It is Shibori dyed with thousands of small sumo bindings all over, a treasure I found on Etsy.
The big cubby where all the books and samples are.
I am so happy I found a nice place for my grandmothers old sewing machine, she would have been very proud it is standing here today.
Not in pictures but certainly there; a small office for administration related tasks and the main storage for all of the dyes and fabrics we have. Now I can finally start making videos and teach online like so many of you requested, teach workshops in the studio and grow steadily.
If you are local, come and visit me in the new place, and I will show you around. I would love to see YOUR set up for your dye studio, do you have a she-shed? A designated room? Do you work outside?