Even Bees Need Creative Spaces to Work!

My wife Julianne is known to the world as the Keen Bee! She is keen (which means clever, cool, hip, with it...and a bunch of other descriptive words) and she is creative! A couple of years ago she followed her dream to quit her cubicle job as a drone designer at the University of Missouri Kansas City Medical School and start her own business. She carefully researched names and logos and ultimately decided on Keen Bee Creative. What does a Keen Bee do? Well, all things creative is an easy answer. She got her start by doing a variety of illustration and graphic design work, but more recently she has branched out into making dimensional (tactile) pieces of art (some you can wear) and has even exhibited some of her work in consignment shops in Kansas city.

(Look out for the shameless plug here...) This weekend she is making her debut as part owner of Eclectics Gallery in the Brookside/Waldo area of Kansas City, MO! They are kicking off the Valentine season with a show of new works by several artists from the KC area...Julianne is contributing some awesome recycled felted wool flower brooch/hair clips, button flower vases and some hilarious "Anti-Valentine's Day" cards (I helped with some of these!)


But where does the Keen Bee get creative? She does it in her new "Design Hive" studio we've nearly completed at our house! The Keen Bee is still busy organizing where all of her supplies and equipment live at the hive, but I wanted to share a few photos of the transformation from drab tan office to colorful and eclectic workspace!
This photo is of the "home office" room when we looked at the house back in December. The furnishings are what the previous owner left to stage the room for house showings. The room was very functional. The Pottery Barn tan color and white trim was functional, but it didn't say much about Keen Bee. So we cleared out all of the stuff we had crammed in there and began taping off the trim and floor to prep for a creative upgrade.

We began by going to Lowe's and looking at paint swatches (which is very overwhelming...too many to choose from AND never the exact shade you want!) We had seen an image of a 4 color scheme that included a chair rail. We found some cool old chair rail at the Re-Store (Habitat For Humanity's warehouse store on Front Street in Kansas City!) I think we got all of the chair rail for about $5! We also picked up an old desk that had been built into someone's kitchen in the 1980's. At our last house I had adapted part of an old kitchen desk into a functioning desk piece for Julianne's studio...we re-re-purposed it at the new studio as a sewing station!

So...mustard yellow on the upper half of the wall, a rust orange/brown on the lower separated by chair rail and window/door trim (and baseboard) painted an olive green. The doors, window shashes, and desk drawers were painted an orange color. Sounds a little garish you say? Well, we were a little worried too, until we got it all painted on! It is so cool and really feels more like Keen Bee Creative Design Hive than the last studio ever did!

So here we are cutting in the colors... Then we rolled on the colors... Then painted the trim and

furniture! That is our friend Elizabeth who volunteered to help us the first day we worked on the painting. She was great help (and secretly LOVES painting and can't wait till she can have her own walls to paint whatever color she wants!)
Here is the Keen Bee herself working on touching up a salvaged hexagon end table.

We set up the desk, bought some MDF cut to fit the top (Julianne sealed it with a clear eurethane) and decided where to put the rest of the furniture. We brought in a shelf unit that used to be used up at the college in the theater lounge. We set it on its side and Julianne has utilized the cubbies as storage with bins. We will eventually add an MDF top which will expand the work surface a bit. There is also a dedicated sewing station on one side of the room. We will hang a section of old kitchen cabinets that we found at the Restore above the table where Julianne will store sewing supplies and notions. We also bought anold brass chandalier that Julianne painted red with spray paint. That will eventually hang above a seating area we will build this summer.

So, for now, though, here are some pictures of the studio and the Keen Bee at work. She's making those cards for her opening this weekend! So, come on out and see the show!