Retail/ Work Space Revised

One of the things I love most (and sometimes hate) is that design is never done. You can rearrange, revisit, and renovate over and over to achieve different looks for the same space. The same holds true to my little side project. I wasn't completely in love with my first stab at the space plan so I've been reworking it. I could go one and on forever switching and rearranging but for now this is what I am going with.

There are lots of shelves lining the walls for storage and what not. I envision them looking somewhat industrialized.

The open work tables will look just like they sound- large tables that can be used for any purpose. Whether it be building something or just sitting and working on a computer or sewing- these multi purpose tables give lots of room to spread out and work.

The space I am working with has a whole wall of windows that I want to take advantage of. I wanted as few walls as possible in the work area. So for the conference and main office I choose to give them a full wall of windows to allow as much light to filter through as possible.

So that's all for now. I have some more inspiration photos for the Retail area to share later on this week! 

Retail/ Workspace Floor Plan

Hey Friends! I've been slowly but surely working on my design for my Design Retail Workspace. I've been doing some space planning and brainstorming and this is what I've come up with so far:

My original concept was for a group of artisans (Not necessarily Etsy sellers but they could be) to be able to come together, have a place to work on their projects and designs. They could be a team of designers or just individuals who need a space to work on and create their designs. Then be able to showcase and sell their work to the public in the retail area in front as well as have the opportunity to sell online. 

Etsy Retail Space Design

Good Morning Everyone! I hope you had a wonderful weekend. We have been keeping busy with Con-Man and Sawyer's Birthday party this past weekend (pics to come soon). My MIL is also still in town so we are showing her around fabulous Altus this week.

In the meantime, to follow up on my last post about missing design work- I started a little project. This is completely just for fun, a client that I dreamed up (my dream client who lets me design what I want and has an unlimted budget!).

This client is a group of Etsy Retailers who have come together to create an office/ workspace where they can keep track of the business side of their shop and work on their designs as well. There will also a retail space where they can sell their individual designs to customers off the street.

First up is a basic concept board. These are just my preliminary thoughts of what the space might look like and what may go in it- no where near a finished board. I wanted to get my first ideas down on paper so I could remember them later.

And here is the floor plan of the space I will be designing. You can see the existing bathrooms in the back of the space. The left wall is all glass, the main entry is at the bottom.

And here is my plan on dividing the space into public (retail) and private (office/ work) areas.

So that is my starting point, next up is schematic design where I'll plan out the office and retail layout. Yay Space Planning!! (My favorite!!)

Have a great week everyone.

Got Space? Let's Plan It!

*STAY TUNED NEXT WEEK FOR A SUPER AWESOME WAY COOL GIVEAWAY!!*


Often when I'm reading through other blogs or websites I see a lot of comments from people about the best way to lay out their furniture in a space. This is a recent issue that I had when we moved into our new house and I thought I'd show you a way to go about doing this on your own without physically moving your furniture around 10 times.


In design school and in my past jobs whenever we had a job, Space Planning is one of the first priorities. Basically we need to figure out how the room is going to function, what are the existing architectural features, how people will flow through it, what furniture needs to be placed?


For example, the flow of traffic in our living room comes from two different directions; the front entry and the kitchen.

So I need to keep these areas free of furniture for the paths of travel. An ideal walkway in a room is 3'. In residential spaces that is not always an option so as little as 20" can work. Any smaller and you'll be constantly bumping into the corners of your furniture.

Once you have an idea of flow in your room think about the features your room has to offer. You'll want to highlight these. Our room has two major features- the fireplace and wall of windows.

Ideally I want my furniture to face the fireplace and let the windows stand out by not blocking them with a large or tall piece of furniture. I also needed to consider the placement of the TV. This is our main TV watching room so that would be a feature as well.

With these ideas in mind my first idea was to lay out the room like this:

I thought having the couch against the back wall would help anchor the space, and the two chairs would give a feeling of openness when viewing from the kitchen. But after looking at if for a while it seemed like the couch wall felt too "heavy" and the coffee table placement was odd.

So try number 2 gave me this:

I still have all my paths of travel, my furniture is facing both of my features (fireplace and TV) and the windows are readily visible (though I still need to hang curtains....)

This is the view in real life:

With the furniture pulled off the wall and placed in an "L" it creates a sense of closeness and encourages conversation. Everyone can see the TV and fireplace.

While I was doing this I played around to see what other configurations I could come up with, there's really no right or wrong answer.

I wondered what the room would be like with the TV on the opposite wall.

Again I have an "L" shape layout for the furniture, the sofa is on a large blank wall that could give me an opportunity to hang a large piece of artwork. But it seemed like the TV would be to far away and it also creates a path of travel right in front of the TV- not so good. And the fireplace seems to get a little lost.

If we had been able to hang our TV over the fireplace we would have had a layout similar to this:

This lays out nicely as well. It almost creates a "U" shape with the furniture which is also good for conversation. Both the fireplace and TV are highlighted and the windows are open for all to see.

If your thinking of rearranging the furniture in your home keep these ideas in mind. Try using graph paper to lay out your room like I did in our last house when I was deciding on TV placement, a quick sketch can do the trick.

Each square represents 1'. Do a quick measure of your room and draw it out, then measure your furniture and play around; it doesn't have to be perfect. Keep in mind your paths of travel and features of the room, try to leave at least 20" of walk space between furniture. Try different configurations, see what looks right and what doesn't, have fun with it! 

You never know what you'll come up with!