This Artist Turned a Raw Industrial Rental into a Moody, Maximalist Live/Work Space

“Honestly, the building sold me before I even got to the unit,” begins visual artist Charles Andre Thomas. It’s a 1921 loft, and it still had all its original bones when I found it. Exposed brick and beams, ductwork running overhead, huge windows dumping light across the floor, and one wide open space that wasn’t trying to be anything yet. That was the whole appeal.

A photographer and a painter (many of the paintings in the space are his), Charles wasn’t interested in moving into “someone else’s finished vision. I wanted a blank canvas, and this was 3,000 square feet of exactly that. I could already see where the walls needed to go, how the light would land on my paintings, and how the place could work as a home and a studio at the same time,” he writes.

It was basically “bare bones,” when Charles started renting the space four years ago. “Because it was one open floor, I also had to create the zones and dividers that turn a loft into actual rooms,” he writes. “I kept the whole renovation between $25,000 and $35,000 and wrapped it in about one to three months. The budget stretched that far because I made the key pieces myself instead of buying them.”

Charles shares his home, which is much more like a live/work space, with Blu, his Cockapoo. And he uses words like “warm, moody, and collected” to describe the home’s vibes today.

“Underneath everything there’s a Japandi foundation, walnut, natural materials, clean lines, and a lot of plants, but I layered a maximalist’s soul on top of it,” writes Charles. “The walls run in deep jewel tones (navy, terracotta, oxblood, forest green, mustard) that set off my own paintings, my custom furniture, and a rotating collection of designer art toys. It reads part gallery, part studio, part home, which is exactly what I was going for.”

This tour’s responses and photos were edited for length/size and clarity.
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