The before photo nearly gave me a heart attack.

^Same.

we have been sorting out our art / music studio the past week or so. the outcome is not nearly as nice as this but it is coming along. itll be a lot more random. we are coveting the flat metal drawers pictured in the after. anyone know where to find something like it thats affordable?

The 'before' made me nostalgic for art school. Almost everyone's studio looked like that, to some extent.

Few artists are anal retentive. (That is, other than those with clean fingernails, who only use computers)
As an art school graduate, I can state that the very nicest people are ceramicists, who spend their lives in mud. And the nastiest primadonnas, are those squeeky clean design students, who dream of big bucks in advertising.

It must be pleasant and refreshing to look out large windows while working indoors.

I definitely had a sewing room just like your 'before' pic. So refreshing after and WAY easier to work.

lol@Nanushka-- that's what I always think, too!

This post comes just in time for me to overhaul my own space. Anyone who thought about merely having a heart attack over the before photo here would have spontaneously combusted at the sight of my little room...

What? A messy artist? How did THAT happen? </sarcasm>

The before was not that bad. I'd call it untidy, not horrifying. I've been hardened by watching Hoarders. Some of its episodes involving garbage and animal hoarding make this before look like a successful after.

LOL

they didn't really need to get new furnishings, etc......all they needed to do was to CLEAN UP after themselves.

I suspect that an "after the after" photo taken a month or two later would show the room just as messy as in the "before" photo

@sousa609: I'm not convinced that it will be just as bad as the before: the before had NO storage. Whether the storage will actually be used is another story... but if it's available for me, I use it.

sousa, if you are trying to come off as sanctimonious it is working. It is alot easier to clean up after yourself if everything has a place. Didn't look like the old picture had much storage. Plus, if you have a nice new space it makes it gives you the impetus (sp?) to try and keep it cleaner.

I'm always interested in seeing studio spaces. I'm an artist myself. I find that when I'm getting the most work done my studio is a mess! It seems hard to find a balance between neat, tidy, unused space... and productive and messy. Still looking for ways to store supplies that's both visually attractive and realistic. For example the container store sells lots of nifty looking drawers and boxes, but in my studio they'd end up just getting covered in paint and charcoal.

@joeldwaters - they're called flat files. I've seen them go for as low as $150 to as high as $heckaexpensive. Hope that helps.

oh, to have a space like the "after"! great job. thanks for sharing.

also, though i don't want to add to the sniping that i sometimes find in a.t. comments, i feel compelled to address someone's earlier comment. my sister is a graphic designer who uses a computer for quite a bit of her work (primarily in advertising). her fingernails are clean. she is not a "nasty primadonna". she is an artist ... one who's won close to 100 awards and is sought out for her work (but she won't tell you that). unfortunately she doesn't get the big bucks for that ... yet.

personalities are not job-specific and there's more than one way to be (as) an artist.

Are those Ph. Martin's inks in the window? EEEEEEEK. Ph. Martin ink dye colors are NOT light stable!

I'm more of a crafter than an artist, but my room has looked at least as bad as the before picture when I am busy working, but when it's clean I have had people tell me I am so organized. They just really needed some storage.

I think the redo is fabulous. But I also love the mess of an artist's studio! I'd kill to have either the messy version or the neat one! :)

@ art is necessary

I definitely see where you're coming from. It takes all types to do different jobs and its not fair to say "every ad designer is money hungry" or "every artist is messy".

That said, I've found that designers tend to be competitive. That competitive spirit at best pushes them further, and at worst can be quite childish and nasty. I do think it is somewhat inherent in the position, as designers are constantly working against deadlines and competing amongst each other for clients.

That before photograph looks like my office. I'd say $500 well spent. Now my daily "punishment" for visiting this lovely blog is that I have have to pick up and either discard or put away at least one thing. Its slowly moving toward the before image!.

Great job! Question - was the 'before' flooring stick tiles and you just removed them? The new (old?) floor really makes the place! Also, is that part of the $500?

I'm no artist or crafter, but I've known a number of them. The before looks pretty normal for a studio when its artist is in the middle of working hard. That's not to say that the additional storage won't be useful, and the one huge work space in the after looks like another big improvement in function.

@lazy_lurker I find that I do the same thing when visiting this site. It's not a bad punishment.

okay.... storage is nice, but i dunno... if it was me, i think the after-after would look very similar to the before... only my LR, kitchen and BA are sorta tidy...

that said, the extra work space is AWESOME

@joeldwaters
may be this is what u need ?? http://newyork.craigslist.org/wch/fuo/2606193880.html

to studiostarter:

i have experienced that competitiveness in every setting i've ever worked: retail shops and restaurants, a coffee shop and a bar. in/outpatient mental health units/offices. when i've sought/seek a different kind of freelance work (not graphic design). even when i was a young kid in corn-detassling and babysitting jobs and as a student in the classroom, working on solo or group projects and when applying for scholarships and assistantships. i felt that competition when my doctor and hairdresser each moved office and pushed to keep me on their patient/ customer lists. and do i need to mention the wretched reputations (deserved by a few, certainly not all) of lawyers, commission-based salesclerks and politicians?

i'm not saying all babysitters, doctors, social workers, politicians, lawyers, salesclerks etc. are pushy and competitive. i am saying i have felt it from a few ... and that immature or greedy behavior is not inherent to graphic designers or any other type of worker. we're all just trying to make a few dollars and get by. especially in this stupid economy.

just trying to defend my sister's occupation ...
thank you. :)

@art is necessary: thanks for defending graphic designers. :-)

@ studiostarter: There will always be prima donnas in every profession, but for the bulk of us (moderately-paid) graphic designers, to be a prima donna would mean losing clients. We can't afford to not be good listeners who provide solutions that meet the needs of our clients and their audiences.

As my mother would say to me after I cleaned up my studio "...but how long is it going to stay that way?" and btw, I am a graphic designer and I'm super duper nice. Being an art school graduate myself I have known a lot of "classically trained artists" who are big flakes...and a lot who are nice. It's stupid to ry to put labels on people based on their profession.

That should read "to try to put labels on people"...

That orange chair in the After photo is beautiful! I wonder what kind of chair it is Ive never seen that before.

@Xtina

while I agree it's easier to clean up when everything has a place, you do actually have to make the effort to put things in the places where they're supposed to go. The debris on the floor at the front of the photo looks like trash that nobody has bothered to put in the trash bin. Having a perpetually cluttered studio myself, I'm fully aware that having adequate storage doesn't mean the occupant will actually put things away.

@art is necessary, @studiostarter @therapazene and @alphabear:
Making gross generalizations is one of my great pleasures in life. Don't take me too seriously. I am sure that you are all lovely people.

I too studied graphic design and spent 22 years ruining my neck, eyesight and carpal tunnels, working on Photoshop and Illustrator.
Then I discovered the beauty of turpentine fumes stained clothing, paint splattered floors, walls, hair and eyeglasses.

It's a good thing that every so often I invite a client to the studio and gotta clean up. (Not too clean, I gotta preserve the romantic ambience) Otherwise, even I would get grossed out.
I think that my only solution to the mess, is to move every 3 years to a progressively smaller studio.

My first thought was, Why aren't there any window coverings/shades for a room that messy??!

@DrTheopolis ....to let creativity in :)

In medio stat virtus!

@Ulrika, I noticed those bottles lined up in that bright window. Even if they aren't dyes or inks, most paints warn against storing them below certain temperatures. In that bright window, those little bottles would be too hot or too cold over the seasons. Not ideal! Better in storage under the desk.

This gives me hope for my home office AKA the fire hazard.

Hope I didn't make any graphic designers angry with my comment. I'm actually really interested in the profession and have a lot of respect for it. I've never been in the industry firsthand but many of the designers I know talk about the bickering/tension/competitiveness even amongst designers in the same firm. I think there's probably a reason why I keep hearing this theme repeated by numerous designers I know (who openly admit to being competitive themselves). I think competition can be a good thing. I also think it can bring out the worst in people.

Everyone's studio gets this way after a while, but it's so important to tidy up for a clean sweep when starting a new series/project/piece. And flat files really are an excellent way to get organized! My shop has 4 sets of flat files; if you're lucky, you can find them on craigslist for about $250 a set, instead of $1200....

OM G I've just been inspired to clean.

ditto on the chair in the after shot, anyone know where its from?

The chair looks like an old dentist's chair.

Where are the floors from? I have a hard time finding narrow boards like that.

And I'm now moving my own paints away from the window. I love the makeover. I think I need to create a space with more room for me to think in. Inspired.