Why pay sky-high rent for a generic beige box when you can pour that love into an old house with good bones, character, and endless stories to tell?
When it came time to establish a permanent home for Redhead Design, the search began where most commercial journeys do: office parks, strip centers, and traditional commercial storefronts. It didn’t take long to realize that commercial leases have zero soul. They hand you drop ceilings, fluorescent troffer lights, and landlord guidelines that suck the creative life out of a design studio before the first fabric swatch hits the table.
The Designer’s Wish List: Function Meets Reality
For the first time ever, I was my own client!
Designing spaces for clients requires an unexpected amount of very specific, hardworking square footage:
- Large Work Surfaces: Picture setting up for a full presentation—dozens of fabric memos, wood finishes, counter and tiles, lighting, rug pom-poms—all at once without knocking over your morning coffee.
- A Real Sample Library: A well-edited library demands deep, sturdy shelving, flat files, and organized bins that standard office cubicles simply can’t accommodate.
- The “Holding Zone”: Between styling installs and project reveal days, we need dedicated square footage to safely house lamps, vintage art, layered accessories, and hardware before they head to their forever homes.
- Easy Access & Everyday Ease: Logistics matter. Asking clients to circle city blocks hunting for a metered parking spot is an immediate buzzkill for a creative meeting. We needed effortless on-site parking wrapped in a warm, inspiring atmosphere.
Touring cookie-cutter office suites made the decision crystal clear: sterile spaces, high rents, and zero charm just weren’t for us. That was our cue to pivot toward a forgotten fixer-upper—an older residential home that needed vision, a little patience, and a whole lot of love.
Falling for the Quirks (and Playing House Detective)
Old houses possess an energy that new construction can’t easily replicate, and this one had plenty to say. Walking through for the first time, we couldn’t help but play detective. I found myself wondering about the former owners, their daily routines, and a few of their very curious design decisions (like why are there stairs in the powder room? And why so many louvered doors?).
Yet, past the dust and head-scratching moments, the architectural gems stopped us in our tracks:
The Space Planning Puzzle
Trading a drywall box for a historic footprint brought instant character, but it also kicked off an intense space-planning challenge. Traditional residential floor plans aren’t intuitively mapped out to balance fabric flat files, client presentation zones, accessory storage, and everyday office workflows.
The goal wasn’t just to make the rooms functional—it had to feel like us. We set out to rethink every single square foot so the studio could work twice as hard as an office while feeling completely like a vibrant, welcoming home. When clients walk through our doors, they shouldn’t feel like they’ve arrived at a sterile boardroom. We want them settling into a layered, texture-rich space where ideas flow easily and every corner showcases what happens when you design with intention.
In Part 2, we’re opening the door to the demo dust, the surprises uncovered inside the walls, and the custom solutions that turned this historic home into our dream working studio. Stay tuned!
