The Photography by Brea Office!

July 19, 2013 The Photography by Brea Office!

I am SO excited to share this with all of you! So excited, that my heart is racing as I type this. It may sound silly but I feel like this office is the culmination of all of my hard work for the past three years in business and most especially the last year which has been a whirlwind and gotten me here, to where I am today. Self employed. Running a business that adequately replaced my full time income to get me out of a job that left me unfulfilled for nearly 4 years. Working with amazing clients who I have the joy of building lasting relationships with and being able to also call my friends. I love every minute of being a business owner. From shooting to editing to paperwork and administrative tasks… every last bit of it is enjoyable and rewarding. I’m still in shock that I got here so quickly and I express my gratitude daily. This life is AMAZING.

Earlier this year my husband Steve suggested something that I was so shocked by I still don’t believe that it’s real, even sitting in the space now. He suggested that when I go full time with my business (Not if, when. This is why I love him.) that we build me an office in our garage. Our garage (as you will see shortly) is huge. It’s large enough to fit 2 cars, a motorcycle, tractor, and lots of other stuff and still look empty. It was his “must have” in a house, and I often questioned if he even loved our garage more than our house. All of this considered, the suggestion is shocking right? The neat thing about our garage is that it’s detached from the house and HUGE. It also has multiple doors to access it, so we just sectioned off a 12×12 space with a door that already existed. Leaving us room for all of the things we already had in the garage still, and it’s still not crammed. In April the contractors started on the space and when we got back from vacation on May 5th it was built!

I’m so excited to be using this space not only as a beautiful and inspiring workplace for my day to day work, but also I’m now ready to meet clients here! The main goal was to have a place outside the home for me to work without certain cute distractions *cough*Sherlock*cough* and to have the feeling of “going to work” each morning. But the other amazing part is that I have a beautiful space that’s both comfortable and inviting to show off my work and have clients come visit that also matches my brand! Any of my photographer friends can vouch that carrying all of your sample products to and from coffee shops can be put excess wear on them (and you). Now I have the benefit of them being able to stay here more often and being able to show more than just what I can carry! The canvasses that I have in my office are completely gorgeous and I can’t wait for people to be able to see them in person!

Now I’m going to stop rambling and get to what you came here for, PICTURES!

So here’s a shot from the back of our property. As you can see the garage is as big as the house. LOL. Seriously, the Google Earth view shows that the footprint is nearly identical. The door closest to the big tree is the entrance to the Photography by Brea office!

And here it is!! EEEE!!!

This is my view every day and RIGHT NOW.

And this is the view from the settee. That fancy thing-a-ma-jig above the door is a mitsubishi heating/cooling unit. It’s what will keep this space comfortable year round!

I am obsessed with the color scheme (teal, shocker) and furniture!

The shelf is a little bare for now, but there will be more added to it eventually!

This amazing fish tank was built by Steve! Another shocking moment to me was when he offered to put it in my office. He put so much time, energy, frustration and excitement into the construction of it and I love that he’s sharing it with me! The reasoning was two-fold: this space is climate controlled, the rest of the garage is not, and it’s fun and my clients will be able to enjoy it more than our cars will. He also comes and hangs out with me in here quite a bit when I’m working at night :)

And these are the fish! There are three, but the third likes to hide. Their names are Brimstone (left) and Freckles (right), and the one who is hiding is our Pleco, aptly named Om Nom. Can you guess who named which of the orange fish?

The family wall! I LOVE each one of these images (and families!) and am so excited to look at this every day! It’s also the first thing you see when you walk in the door!

And the wedding/engagement wall! This is what we were waiting for to arrive before the official unveiling. The canvasses arrived Wednesday evening! It was so, so hard picking canvasses for this wall. There were so many decisions that went into it– variety of locations, posing, couples, etc. and then changes had to be made when certain choices didn’t quite go with the rest of the wall. It took forever to settle on these and I’m so happy with how they turned out!

And my favorite part: The big window with a view of our beautiful yard and house! At my last job I was in a basement with no windows (and a closed door, so no real air flow either) and the natural light and relaxing view is a major upgrade!

Thank you all for reading this super long post and checking out the photos of my amazing office! I couldn’t be more excited about how it turned out. It’s been a lot of work to get here, both in terms of the business and the office itself and I’m so excited to see where the journey leads!

Settee + Chairs + Curtains: Target
Rug, Desk, Book shelf, Tables: IKEA
Construction: S+J Custom Remodeling
 

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