The past two years have changed the way we view our homes forever. Home is not only a place to relax, but also a place to work, eat, gather with those closest to us and be inspired.
The pandemic shifted the way we work at Mayne Marketing too. When photography studios began closing their doors, our projects were moved to my apartment office. While there was a bit of an adjustment at first, Annie and I began to love working from home and the creative possibilities of using a home environment as a backdrop for our photography projects...we just needed a little more space.
Serendipitously, my husband and I had just purchased a piece of land to build a home. I started dreaming up a space with room to shoot and ample light and locations for lifestyle content that couldn’t be duplicated in a studio setting. We worked with an architect to draft a plan and started the building process with Dwell Custom Construction!
If you've been following the Mayne Marketing team for awhile, you probably know that we love building community through collaboration. As we set out to build this new home and studio space, we were inspired by the opportunity for our largest collaboration to date - bringing our favorite building materials together to create a home where we can shoot lifestyle content for our clients for years to come.
We're partnered with some phenomenal brands that are helping us bring our vision to life:
We're primarily natural light photographers, so it was important to design a space with ample windows. Our plan features over 40 windows and large glass doors, maximizing the light and inviting the lush natural landscape in. We wanted our windows to have a modern and minimal profile and were so impressed with the innovative and sustainable aluminum solutions Reynaers SlimLine38 provides.
2. Montigo
When creating content for social media, it's important to be able to put products in context. While you can create a realistic setting for small products in studio, it's much more difficult to recreate a home-like environment for larger items. Our living room was designed to showcase these large products, like furniture, and features a beautiful fireplace from Montigo as the backdrop. Known for their innovative design, each Montigo fireplace is handcrafted with care and unique to each installation. They're providing us with two media options as well, so we switch up the style of the fireplace for shoots.
3. Kentwood
The floor is a key design detail in the space - we wanted something organic and warm, but without a lot of variance so it wasn't a distraction. When we found Kentwood's Tulum (pictured above), we knew immediately that we had found the perfect engineered oak for our home.
We're always looking for textured backdrops for photography projects, so it was important to incorporate different materials on the exterior of the home. We're using white stucco, wood slats and thin brick from General Shale in 'NIGHTFALL' to create a dynamic backdrop. General shale provides preferred building material solutions that boast enduring quality, energy efficiency and natural beauty - we're thrilled to be partnering with them on this project!
We wanted a glass garage door to complement the design of the home, but did not want to completely sacrifice privacy in our storage space. We loved the 'Tinted Smoke' glass option for the Raynor Styleview door and slim aluminum frame that complements our windows.
6. Thermory
Thermory is the union of science and design. Their real wood products give you unequaled longevity without sacrificing the beauty of natural wood, which was important to us when designing this space. We're incorporating their Benchmark Clear Pine on the exterior of the home, installing this product as vertical slats and soffit.
7. Emtek
We searched high and low for the perfect hardware to complement our space. We wanted a thoughtfully designed, high quality product that could stand up to use from large crews on shoot days. We landed on the Select L-Square Straight Knurled Lever from Emtek in polished chrome and selected pocket door hardware and cabinet pulls to match.
Construction is underway and we can’t wait to share the process with you all! Here is a first look at our material board for the build and the progress we've made so far. Be sure to follow our build partners to stay up-to-date (you'll be seeing them a lot around here!) Thanks for following our small business journey - we’re so excited about what’s to come!
Builder: @dwellcustomconstruction
Thin Brick: @generalshale
Wood Accents: @thermoryusa
Hardware: @emtek_products
Windows and Doors: @reynaersus
Interior Fireplace: @montigofire
Flooring: @kentwoodfloors
Garage Door: @raynorgaragedoors