Our Studio Reveal: San Rafael Design & Photography Studio « Tanya & Victor

Our Studio Reveal: San Rafael Design & Photography Studio

We’ve hesitated to post about this for a while because we consider this part of our business to be a most sacred part. Victor and I had been hopping around all over the Bay Area looking for the perfect place we can host client meetings and have a space to get away from our home office/ studio. We temporarily shared a couple of spaces in Oakland, but the commute was 1 hour too long. We tried a really great corner space in a brick loft building in San Francisco. Although, its very open space would prove too difficult to have some privacy and too hefty of the price tag for us. Low and behold when we met Katie from Katie Rebecca Events it was best friendship status at first sight. Her warm and welcome all attitude immediately captured our hearts from our first meeting.

One day, she casually slipped an invitation for anyone to use her studio space at the time and we took it and ran with it. In August all of us blocked two weekends plus some days to completely redo the area in a way that it can serve more efficiently and beautifully (see our post on that here). We ripped out the carpets, did an inventory of our things, moved furniture back and forth, got rid of furniture, scraped 40-year-old carpet glue for an industrial look in our Victorian suite. We painted the butterscotch-colored walls 3 layers of white paint on each wall and put together back furniture. New furnishings arrived, and a new layout emerged, hence our studio home.

After putting a lot of elbow grease, gone hungry more than 12 hours at a time, plus numerous runs to Home Depot and Tam Paints, we finally settled into our new studio space. I moved most of our home office essentials minus our gear to be able to have our dedicated space. Katie moved to North Carolina, and her empty desk makes me miss her so much, but my heart is so humbled by her openness and strive to see her family thrive. Being here, working from here, getting inspired from here, was the perfect piece to our business puzzle. We love hosting our prospect clients here, plus started offering in-studio portraits. At which we’re so excited to serve our local community in a new way.

There are more things to get done. The walls need a little more art love, some plants and florals to purify the air, plus maybe a TV? We’ll see! Stay tuned for posts to come, but we’re continuing this journey of growing and learning. I love that I have a place to go to every day. Plus our Etsy Shop has a storefront for our customers residing in Marin! If you’re ever in our neck of the woods feel free to drop by, we’re off Lincoln Ave in San Rafael. We’re also grateful to Katie. Her friendship with us has opened so many doors, and for that, we’ll forever be in debt. {& to Virginia our landlady for being so accommodating with all the fixtures}Oh hello! Pardon my Sunday attire, but this is how you will usually find me. You’ll always be served macaroons when you’re here, plus hang your coat and stay a while…When our desks are pristine clean they look like this 10% percent of the time. Some of our current reads. See San Francisco was gifted to us by our in-house editor. Some of the books that we always enjoy flipping through. My frequent pick-me-up station Cherry blossoms are in full bloom in our backyard, so I love to bring a few branches here.  Ella Fitzgerald seen on the bottom right of our bookshelf, plus my lovely Day Designer.  Magnolia Journal, our guide into “what would Joanna do” philosophy.Every day I’ll have at least a half gallon of lemon water hence the lemons. Beyonce may have had some influence on this little corner. The kid-charmer chair. We’re very proud of it. This is the workstation where our albums, prints, watercolor, hand-drawn designs go down – basically where the magic happens. That white space will turn into a gallery soon! We can’t get over how proud we are of the concrete flooring. And yes you’re probably seeing double.
Some of our in-studio albums and canvases. This is your view when you come over.

 

We’re very excited to be able to provide contemporary portraits & headshots too in the studio. Contact us if you’re interested!

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