A Room of One’s Own: Retrofitting our studio space

Firstly, we have to say a very happy new year to everyone- we hope that your holiday season was peaceful and full of joy!

Our lead up to Christmas tends to be very busy as we have many lovely clients who like to shop locally with us as December rolls around. For many years, we would hold an ‘Open Studio’ where we moved our work upstairs into the Salon space and showcased all of our work for one Sunday in December. Whilst this has always been very fun, and we have always had droves of clients come for the day, it was certainly coming to the point where lugging all of our things upstairs and prepping for just one day was becoming a tiny bit exhausting!

Organised chaos

Although we are predominantly a wallpaper and design studio, we’ve recently started to work more on creative projects in-house, like one-off hand painted cushions, bags, prints and (most recently) ceramics. Because of this, we thought it would be more meaningful if they were available to buy in our studio space instead!

Often piled to the brim with fabric, tools, wallpaper samples, inks and, in my case, paperwork that hasn’t been done (oops), our studio is somewhere that we often had to hastily tidy up if someone wanted to come for an appointment or to take a look at what we had to offer. Even then, we’d be apologetically moving aside a box or five that we hadn’t quite gotten around to unpacking, knocking over a pile of wallpaper samples in the process…!

It certainly wasn’t a place where we could invite hundreds of people down for a day to get some much needed retail therapy!

Around October of last year, as we began to think about the upcoming holiday season, we decided ‘enough was enough’. It was time. Yep, we were about to do this- make the studio into a shop! But how?! With all of our projects, our fabric, our screens, our Stuff, our Things? It was a bit of a daunting prospect!

Best laid plans…

Can you tell I like playing Tetris? I wanted to try and contain as much space as possible whilst prioritising our favourite things to do- making a calm and meaningful environment for people to be able to freely see what we had to offer. I also quite like to draw diagrams. I was in my happy place.

A very dusty day was spent moving things around and setting up the IKEA Kallax room divider. I was certainly in my element as I was allowed to use a hammer AND an electric screwdriver. It’s the little things in life, isn’t it?

A thing that Yukari had told me about a while ago that I also agreed would be fab was a pegboard area where we could hang and display various products for people to look at- not only was it practical, it would also look great and save us some table space.

The pegboard would also provide a backing for our rammed shelving- you can’t teach an old dog (us) new tricks (to put our things away properly) after all!

“My dream (wall) came true!”

As well as looking an absolute treat, the pegboard also allows for the client to interact with the products at face level and see the them more clearly instead of having to open up our packaging and spread it out. Mirrors placed strategically would give them space to imagine themselves with the product as well as help give an illusion of more room. We also prioritised surfaces and table space for our products to be laid out in a way where people would not be afraid to pick them up or interact with them. After all, isn’t touching absolutely everything half the fun of shopping?

Yukari now also has space to lay out her ceramics collection as it expands. With the help of our rather battered and bruised wrapping table and a pretty deadstock linen teatowel from a recent trip to Atelier Hop in Amsterdam by yours truly, we were able to create the perfect centrepiece to our room.

Throughout the month of December, as our friends and beloved clients came to visit us, the ceramics quickly sold and became a firm favourite amongst those who now own them.

A lasting connection

One thing that we really loved was that because everybody was able to come in as and when they were able to, we got to spend a lot of time with each individual who came in and help them choose the perfect gift. Some mentioned that it would now be their go-to stop for for special occasions like birthdays or housewarmings! It was also so wonderful to know that our products were going to a loving home!

We were so overjoyed with the heartfelt response of our clients who came down to see us throughout the month of December. We were especially excited to welcome back friends and clients who had previously been to see us downstairs and show them what we had done with the space- many were more surprised about how much room there actually was downstairs, since before it was all being quite overwhelmed with the dreaded Things and Stuff. They were also, much to Yukari’s delight, very impressed with our little pegboard wall! 

We’re really excited to utilise the full space of our studio setup with this new permanent shop. In the future we will be letting you know about new items and expanding more on certain existing products via our Monthly Roundup newsletter- if you’re curious, please do sign up here, or else down at the footer of our website.

We are looking forward to welcoming you to our new space. Below are all of the details, including our Maps location.

YSD London Studio Shop
(downstairs at Sweeney Hair Salon)
46 Royal Hill
Greenwich
London SE10 8RT

WEDNESDAY- SATURDAY 11AM-5:30PM

 

See you soon!