Designing A New Home Art Studio

The mission to design my brand new home art studio and creative office.

In December of last year, my partner and I embarked upon our most ambitious home project yet - moving our kitchen from one room to another.
It was quite possibly the hardest thing we've ever done, more so than we expected for sure.  But it means we are left with a perfectly sized little room that was the old kitchen, ripe for rebirth as a creative studio!

I have huge visions for the room to be a glorious working space that's both practical and stunning, organised but cosy. 
Before that though - everything kitchen had to be removed. Shaun spent a couple of weeks dismantling the old units, and on Valentines Day of all days, I rented a van to cart the whole lot to the tip.
We were ready to begin for real.

The Walls:
What should have been a basic task of stripping wallpaper ended up being the start of a crucial discovery.  The wallpaper, when pulled, brought down the thin layer of plaster that had been on the walls.  Behind that was nothing but breezeblock.
We decided that the next step had to be installing some actual plasterboard, and spent just over £100 in Wickes getting tapered edge boards which meant that we didn't need to skim over the whole thing, just the joins where the boards meet each other.
Once they were installed, the joints were taped and Shaun got to work with plastering.  Because the boards have tapered edges, they form shallow troughs at each join, allowing the plaster to sit between them and level with the main body of the board.  Doing it this way was WAY easier than skimming the whole room, and it didn't take as long to dry.

For colour, I knew I needed white walls for practicality, giving me a nice clean backdrop for photos of my work.  I also knew that I wasn't willing to create an office without any pink.  The solution came after scouring pinterest for inspiration and coming up with pink ceilings.
The pink comes 30cm down each wall too, giving the illusion of a higher ceiling and making it feel less like a big pink lid on the room.

The Floor:
I didn't want to invest a lot of time or money into the floor.  IKEA had a big sale just before Christmas I had managed to snag a big 2m x 3m rug, which basically covered the whole floor with about a foot to spare at each side.
We rented a floor sander and sanded all of the muck, construction dust and general grime of a 50 year old floor before using a Danish oil to seal it in and give it a little protection, as well as bringing out a bit of the natural wood grain on the parts of the floor that are on display.

The Furniture:
I haven't bought proper new furniture for this office, but I have given some pieces a new lease of life.
We had really ugly beige sofas in our living room for about 4 years.  When we got a new one, I kept hold of the beige two seater because I knew I wanted an office sofa and I could re-cover it in some way.
Originally, I'd been looking at sofa covers from online retailers like SofaGuards, but the reviews were terrible, describing them as cheap looking, saying they didn't last and were generally a bit naff.
After a bit of searching for an alternative I discovered that Dunelm stock them!  I originally placed an order for an emerald green one which looked lovely online, but when I collected it was a bit of a gross grey-teal colour.  I swapped for the midnight blue one, an easy swap because I had been going back and forth between the two anyway.  It was super easy to fit to the sofa and looks way better than the beige horror that came before.

The one new thing that I have bought in terms of furniture is something I've always wanted: a sit-stand desk.
We were in IKEA last year (I swear we go to other places) and they had the bargain of the century in their Circular Hub - you know the corner before the checkouts where they sell ex-display and returned bits and bobs aka my fav bit of any IKEA trip.
We came across the frame for a sit-stand desk, electric and everything for a whopping discount of 78%, down from £400 and something to under a hundred quid! I umm'd and arr'd but knew I couldn't leave a bargain like that behind. So we bought it and used my existing desktop with it.

The Hiccups:
There were a few minor incoveniences let's say, but we managed to tackle them and I'm pretty happy!
The first annoying thing was the boiler.  I'm not about to relocate a boiler just for the sake of an office.  We decided to box it in, concealing it in a cupboard and making the bottom half open shelves.  It blends right in now and was quite cheap just using basic materials from B&Q.

Another thing was gas.  We never had a gas oven or hob, but the house must have done at some point because there was a capped off gas pipe above the floor level behind the units.  After a LOT of research and a chat with a friend of Shauns who is qualified in gas related matters, we chopped it down to under the floorboards, capped it off with a new valve and used leak detection fluid to check it was safe.  After a few tests, it was, so we replaced the floorboards and no longer need to concern ourselves with it again.

The area where the window is had our sink underneath, so it had been tiled up the back of the sink and onto the windowsill.
Upon removal of the tiles we discovered that it was actually two layers of tiles, the previous builder deciding not to remove the original tiles before laying new ones.  Once we removed all of those, we were left with a rough looking window ledge and had to go get ourselves a new windowsill.  
I knew I wanted a wooden one but I was surprised to see that PVC ones were the same price, I always assumed they were the cheaper option because why would anyone want PVC over a lovely wooden sill?
And here's my top hack for windowsills: Paint with regular emulsion (in my living room its pink to match the wall) and just seal in with a clear gloss.  You get a shiny scratch resistant windowsill that perfectly matches your walls.

And that was that!

I've since filled it with beautiful finishes from candles to lampshades to plants, mirrors and mirrorballs.  It's definitely a space I want to spend all my time in, so job done!

I've also since uploaded two videos to YouTube, links here if you'd like to check them out.
Just need to make some new work now!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It8zOVBBYgQ&t=16s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qE0Bj_jkwo&t=18s