We’ve been in our new studio for a few months now and whilst it definitely feels like home it’s taken a fair bit of work to get to this stage. When Mike and Tom first visited the space last year they saw the potential it had despite the fact it was in a pretty poor condition. The occupants before us had left overnight "in a bit of a hurry" so this meant the space was full of abandoned office furniture, paperwork, cutlery and even empty drink cans on the desks. As you can see here, it was like the people had vanished!
Once the chiefs were happy it was the right place we all made a team visit and the guys explained their plans. It was agreed that this place had great potential for Toward so the wheels were set in motion. Once we'd cleared the space we could make decisions about decoration, layout and how to put our own stamp on it. Here's some of the team playing with some of the junk stuff left from the previous tenants...
It wasn't exactly a project worthy of an episode of Grand Designs but there was still a fair bit of work to do. All the walls were painted, the old kitchen was ripped out and a new one installed, new carpet was fitted, we had a meeting room with a window created at the end and a partition wall to create a separate but still relatively open space for Mike. We couldn’t cage him in too much...
One of the last additions was the breakfast bar. This has proved to be the most popular part of the new studio. We have our morning catch up here, informal client meetings and it gets us away from the screens at lunch too. Once the main work was completed we then added the finishing touches. Gareth and Tom designed some prints for the pillars and some graphics for the walls, new furniture added a splash of colour to the place and the space behind my desk is now home to a drum kit and guitar. You may have seen this in our unashamedly cheesy Christmas video.
As with any redesign there were some problems along the way. Firstly we sent Mike out for grey paint for the walls. As you can see, it's clearly dark blue! Luckily we love it now. Oh, and a slight mix up with the kitchen fitters resulted in our breakfast bar being fitted 5 foot off the floor. But that's sorted now :)
The landlord has big plans for the remainder of the building too, with a complete refurbishment planned for the next 12 months, but we're happy to have made our little bit of it home. We're still like new parents and loving having people over to see our new baby at the moment, so if you'd like a guided tour get in touch... Before the teething starts!
