In October I was contacted by a potential client with a unique design request.  She is an accomplished artist; a painter of wild life, nature and domestic animals. She worked out of a room in her home that while large in dimension, was cluttered, dark and unorganized.  Not so unique you might say.  Here are the other details that earn it the UNIQUE title:

In addition to serving as an art studio, the room was used as:

•  a home office
•  a guest room
• a place to do yoga
• a place to watch TV
  AND
• a place for her 5 cats to climb their unique indoor trees, socialize, relax and use the litter box

Here are some BEFORE pictures

The design plan:
The client wanted to bring a tropical feel to the Arizona desert and create a visually clean and uncluttered space.  She loves natural, woven design elements.  The space needed to look and feel bright, open and airy while serving all of the functional needs and be cat friendly and easy to take care of.

1. New easy to care for flooring to replace the worn Berber carpeting-18″ tile in reddish brown was laid
2. Re-upholster the cat trees in a super durable and attractive fabric – Crypton fabric was used
3. Provide comfortable seating and guest sleeping option in an easy to care for , pet friendly fabric-A custom air mattress sleeper sofa was designed using two fabrics; the cushions have an indoor/outdoor tropical fabric and the main sofa is covered in a commercial grade vinyl that has a rattan pattern embossed on it
4. Storage and display for art supplies, books, magazines-a space plan was developed and all was purchased through IKEA or custom constructed.
5. Working surfaces to create artwork-a main desk with a light box is placed by the french doors to take advantage of natural light, and a secondary surface was constructed to spec to stand at and as a dual benefit house and hide the litter boxes
6. Area rugs to soften and define the zones-two sisal rugs (cats love sisal) were placed in the room
7. New window coverings to filter but not block the light-natural woven shades were installed

 AFTER PICTURES

Litter Box Storage & Cat Trees

The client is thrilled with the results.  We both believe that the redesigned space will result in even more beautiful paintings being created and serve as a wonderful room to relax in with and without her 4-legged family members.