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Thursday, December 18, 2014

my workspace tour

What does a "workspace" really mean? Is it where you go to grind out the day or is it a place made to feel like a sanctuary of sorts? Does your workspace make your creative energy FLOW? When I found my amazing workspace on Houston Ave in Nashville, I knew I hit the jackpot. My space has huge windows adorning the walls.  There is so much natural energy when the sunshine fills the room. A little vitamin D goes a long way on a work day. My actual door isn't a just a door but a garage door that opens all the way.  On nice days, I open the garage door and feel the crisp air and see even more sunshine. This provides inspiration for the color combinations I paint, design and create on every frame. My workspace is what gives me NEW and fresh ideas. It is a place I made to feel like a home away from home. I did this by bringing in elements from my home town and my own home. I keep an inspiration board at my shop.  If I find a magazine article or a fabric swatch or just a doodle of mine for a new gallery wall idea, I pin it on the inspiration board. My office section is a place where I can cozy up in my sitting area and decide what new pattern to launch. I love chilling in my little roundtable sitting room and meeting with clients to toss around ideas, paint chips and pattern corners to design a perfect wall JUST for them. My workspace makes my customer feel at home. I designed it to be a round table type setting rather than a "across the desk kinda feel".  My workspace outside the office area is splattered with paint, remnants of designs, wood scraps and sketches with paint smears. It is where I can hand mix colors to match fabrics and actual photographs. I can get DIRTY and let the creativity flow! When picking the perfect work space it was important to balance a fun homey office with an adjacent space where actual hands on painting and sawing takes place.  The set up allows me to meet with my clients in the office space while they can look around and visualize the stations where the actual work takes place. It makes it so real to the client when they see WHERE  these custom frames are actually made. I feel my work space is pretty close to perfect.  However, to make it my dream space I would add in more people and more stations. I would love a work station for every process of the frame. A girl can dream right?  I was inspired to write this post by the cool office spaces I came across at WeWork.  I also hope to give other entrepreneurs an idea of what works for me and provide ideas for their own workspaces. WeWork is such a cool concept and I think a lot of my readers out there could benefit from a 
 "co-working" company like (www.wework.com/locations) . I hope you enjoy the tour below and have learned a little bit about my workspace and how you can get other ideas from Co-working companies like WeWork. Cheers!

Come on in.. Stenciled door I did to add a little extra touch of the COMPANY to the office
A COOL way to display my paint samples to clients but as ART
 Oh and my light and windows … happy happy glow
My assistant and I working out the daily orders
My cozy space for inspiration time and design time
My rountable discussion area
 Getting to work in my actual WORK space
 Painting 
 A customer friendly zone for them to paint swatches to take home
 the glass process : work table
 the glazing and distressing details 
 Me and my inspiration board...
Searching for NEW inspiration in my monthly mags!
Pinning them up...
 Fabrics, doodles, clippings...
 the saw area
 The triangle in the office that reminds me of home: A triangle is the symbol for DELTA (my hometown in Mississippi) 
 the brushes with months of work to show
current stencil collection 
 the magic ...
 the final product...

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