The title of this post was coined over four years ago by Cathy Santarsiero, one of my loyal patrons. Cathy was referring to my former tea room, a happy place where you walked in the door and left the cares of the day behind. Whenever I hear from my shop's patrons, they tell me how much they miss my tea room, especially on a breezy day like to today, when there is nothing better then sitting in a cozy spot across from a good friend, sipping warm tea, and munching on tiny treats.
I, too, miss my shop. But more than that, I miss seeing my favorite customers on a daily basis. Luckily, I still hear from many of them. In fact, one of them is stopping by my studio today to pick up a large order of loose leaf tea.
These days, my "oasis" has become my home studio. It is the one place in our home that is all mine, and I love how I can do whatever I want it with it. But when we moved into our house over 20 years ago, my studio didn't even exist. In fact, we had difficulty even finding a house to buy that had space for a home office. Back in the late 1980s, working at home was not as popular as it is today. However, I had already started a home-based freelance graphic design business so that I could be near the children we were planning to have.
In our home search, all of the houses we looked at didn't have a dedicated space for working at home. I would have had to convert an upstairs bedroom, work in a dank basement, or add a costly addition to have the space required to run my business. What I really wanted was a room on the main floor with a separate entrance to allow for the easy flow of clients and suppliers that would need to stop by. That was a tall order, and John and I searched for a house for over two years.
By the time we bought our current home in late 1990, Hannah was seven months old and we were bursting at the seams. My first house in Rowayton was a tiny 1920s cottage, too small to accommodate a new baby, a home office and a sitter who watched Hannah for a few days a week. Fortunately, our new house had over three times the square footage of our old one and it had lots of potential. But it still required some tweaking to create the studio of my dreams.
The house had a small den that was attached to a screened-in back porch, so our idea was to combine part of the porch with the den. A friend/architect drew up the plans and once they were complete, we hired a contractor. Very soon after, he gave us the bad news that the existing screen porch was not stable. So what we thought was a simple project, turned into building an addition after all. The porch came down, and in its place we constructed an airy space with a vaulted ceiling off the existing den, along with a small screened porch off the kitchen.
I was so excited about getting a custom built office for my growing design business. I remember standing in the space when it was nothing but rough framing and thinking about how I would decorate this special place.
Over the years, my studio's decor has changed. At first, it had a round conference table, a huge photocopier, and two wooden flat files to store large mechanical boards for my clients. Before long, everything I designed was done on my Mac, so the flat files were no longer needed. Then, with the advent of email, I rarely needed to see my suppliers and clients face to face, so the conference table was out the door. And finally, two years after I opened my shop and tea room, I decided to leave my 24-year graphic design career behind for something new. For a while, my studio sat idle. But now it has come back to life.
I am back spending every day in this space and I truly love it. Filled with all of my favorite things, everywhere I look, I find inspiration. As I share more of my "oasis of wonderful" with you over the next week, I hope you will find some inspiration, too.
Susan
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