We know, we know you guys have all been patiently waiting to see these next images. Drum roll please….. Introducing….. Purple Nickel’s new studio located right on the outskirts of downtown Tucson, Arizona in the old firestone tire building. We can walk two blocks from our studio to the downtown area and two blocks in the opposite direction to the artsy 4th Avenue district. It is so convenient. We love the location, it’s completely our vibe. When we first heard of availability in the building from our good friend Erin we knew we had to take a look. We viewed several spaces but never really fell ‘in-love’ with any of them. As we did a second walk through, it was brought to our attention that there was one located upstairs. You can click HERE to read more about it in our sneak peek post.

We’ve documented all the before shots with our pocket sized camera.

This is the main entrance to our studio (pre-clutter). The dark blue metal doors lead you to the parking lot. If you look closely to the right you can see a sliver of the staircase up to our space. We also love the old casement windows where you can peek before heading up.

Image on the right shows the staircase and the entry we mentioned above.  Image on the left shows the windows that let in lots of natural light.

Just a fun overall view, around 1,000 sq ft.  Oh and there’s also five skylights for more light!

We want you to take a good long look at the ceiling. Sounds weird, but are you looking at it? Because we got approval to paint the wood planks and drywall panels a CRISP CLEAN FRESH WHITE! It felt too much like a basement. Plus it would give an update and reflect more light.

The blue door on the right image use to lead into the space next to us but was filled in some time ago. We just adore the character and steel track. Yes it’s grimy at the moment but nothing a good scrub and fresh coat can’t fix.

The wood floor has seen better days but has lots of charm.  Plus considering the age of the building it’s in good condition.

PAINTING DAY! Here’s my hunky masked man all suited up for his battle with the paint sprayer. It took us almost two days of prepping. We didn’t want any paint getting on the brick walls, floor, windows and beams. That was not fun. We can only explain it as if we were fogging the place for critters. That’s what it felt like – just like what you see on those exterminating shows. Only we didn’t have rodents. But we did have paint! Oh and notice the plastic on the floor…

Now it’s completely covered in over spray. See good thing we obsessed over the prepping. But look at the difference in the ceiling. GORGEOUS! Though it took much longer than anticipated. We thought we could bam it out in one weekend… HA!

‘So Eric… how many coats does it take to screw in a light bulb???‘. Well unfortunately in our situation the ceiling wood was super thirsty and it took SEVEN FREAKIN’ COATS OF PAINT! Yeah we’re bitter. In the prepping/painting shots you will notice our paint gallon collection was ever growing. We did two coats primer + three coats paint (with sprayer) + two coats by hand.

DONE!

Stay tuned for the after shots coming soon.