Designing a shop on a small budget... We did it!
- Laura
- Jun 9, 2015
- 3 min read
Anatea, a charming woman, presented us with her project: a shop for art and craft lovers that would also be a place to enjoy small courses.
Marcelle&Jane immediately fell in love with this project: various items that reminded us of our obsession with cabinets of curiosities, the items sold related to creativity in many forms and courses that would create a warm and welcoming place.
Then Anatea presented herself: a skilled woman who knew what she wants and knew how to do it but needed help to design it well and in an interesting way.
We talked about the cabinet of curiosities concept, colors, open spaces, connections between the owner of the business and the aesthetical design of it. She liked the ideas and our way of working.
The main difficulty of this project was the budget: 35,000 NIS for a place without any floor, electricity, water or internal walls. This was a challenge!
The floor was partly paid for by the owner of the place but we decided to ‘upgrade’ it with the use of some patterned tiles and we included this upgrade in our small budget.
One of the reasons we succeeded with this project is Anatea's participation in the process -she was active in finding professional people while completely trusting us on the design front. This task division was clear from the beginning and it really helped us keep within the time frame and the budget.
We started with plans for the electricity, plumbing, flooring, painting, building and light fixtures. We chose strong fixtures that wouldn’t need to be changed afterwards. We didn't want to compromise with the light fixtures as lighting is so important in any commercial space while also adding a lot to the design.
We had to convince Anatea that an open space which would include the shopping area and the courses area was a better choice than two separate closed spaces. We worked on a safe and comfortable solution to make it work and designed two walls on wheels that would allow versatility in the space.
Then we insisted on blue walls, deep blue walls. It was a bit unconventional in so far as the place also aimed to show exhibitions, but we knew it would work perfectly and add an original touch to the place.
Once we agreed on these points, we had 14,500 NIS left to furnish the whole area. We initially designed a so-called "cabinet of curiosities on legs" even if we knew it wouldn't fit the budget: we wanted Anatea to have the plans if she ever wanted to upgrade the furniture afterwards. With small budgets, we think it is very important to think about an evolutionary design you can complete slowly.
So we decided to use mainly cheap ready-made furniture so we could afford to build the walls on wheels. We stayed with our cabinet of curiosity inspiration and made a ‘whole from nothing’. The items being sold will take the center stage. We had a beautiful background with the dark blue walls and interesting light fixtures.
So we went to Ikea and bought most of the furniture there. The idea was to keep it simple and clean but with a twist. The simple wooden units served as a plain backdrop to the artworks to be displayed on it.
To create that twist, we used a very simple, metal grid which we fixed on the large wall behind the counter. It is like an over-sized collage also giving the wow factor when entering the space.
The grid was "dressed" with pictures, prints and sold items. If you are usual M&J followers, you already know Julie is a great painter. We included her artwork on the grid to emphasize the cabinet of wonders' effect.
We also created a blackboard on the moveable walls as a fun element and by paying attention to the details we finally completed the job: Anatea succeeded in creating and opening her own shop, with a unique design and a very small budget.
I hope you enjoyed reading as we enjoyed creating this project!
Marcelle and Jane
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