Dee & Kris Photography Sacramento photography studio
We are so excited to open a midtown Sacramento photography studio. Since we opened in 2006, Dee & Kris photography (once known as Robinson Portraits) has always been a home based office/studio. We primarily photograph weddings, engagement and portraits. This has worked wonderfully for us, however as our company has grown, it has been harder and harder to work out of our home based office. We photographed 55 weddings alone in 2015, and that was just to much traffic going in and out of our home office. Dee has also expressed a desire to move forward on his beauty and portrait work, which will require a working studio.
When 2016 rolled around we knew we had to make the leap to continue to further Dee & Kris Photography. We set our noses to the grind stone and hit the trail looking for the perfect location. We knew we wanted a lot of natural light, a bathroom in the office, and at least 500 sq ft of space. We also desired 10ft ceilings, a changing room, and a midtown/art district location. To say we looked at a lot of locations may be an understatement. We were willing to compromise some of our wants, however when this location became available we knew we had to jump on it, and quick.
2220 J street, suite 5 was an office space for a dry cleaner prior to us taking over the lease. Before that it used to be a boutique dress shop, so there was a lot of character already in it. We fell in love with the large windows, open floor plan, built in dressing room, 10 ft ceilings, and display wall. Oh… and I should mention, it is RIGHT next to See’s Candy – YES PLEASE! We were sold! This was not only perfect for meeting couples, but also this was a great space to shoot exactly what Dee had been wanting to shoot – woman’s portraiture.
As soon as we signed the lease we got right down to business. I wanted to keep the pallet photographer friendly so we choose to go with 4 shades of grey from Home Depot, but I had to tie in those brown floors (they are so cool I didn’t have the heart to paint them). So we painted the largest walls (where our logo it, and the 2 walls with the canvases) the color, “White Metal N520A-1” from BEHR. We painted the opposing walls, “Silver Bullet N520-2” from BEHR, and everything that had a shadow got the darkest grew, “Flannel Grey N520-3” from BEHR. We did repainted all the trim and the white ceilings (I wasn’t going to touch that beautiful wooden ceiling!) the color “Silver Polish” from BEHR. We choose really “true grey” greys (there are a TON of shades of grey btw), however when the light streams in from those HUGE windows, the grey often takes on a tone of lavender and blue. You will see in some of our pictures posted (some are from our Canon cameras and other are quick iphone shots), you can see the how the different light changes the color.
Caleb decided to get into this fun iphone shot as Kris was spackling the walls. Our two boys LOVE the new space, however their main concern was not being able to meet “the clients” (as they call our couples) since they would no longer be coming to our home. Very often our kids would get to meet our awesome couples and we had no idea how much that meant to them until they broke down into tears when we told them we would no longer be working from home. We made them a promise that they would be very involved in the studio and that on occasion they would be allowed to meet our couples. Between that agreement and the sweet attic space that Dee and grandpa Brad are turning into a hangout, they agreed happily to the new midtown studio. 
This brown had to go. It was so orange it hurt my eyes 🙂 – peace out blah walls.
We inherited 2 chandeliers, but knew we only wanted to keep the one in the fitting room. So we pulled the large, white one down and replaced it with our new orb chandelier from World Market and it was the exact look we wanted. 
We also replaced the ceiling tract lighting with some cool lighting we found at Lowes. This also tide in the floors and chandelier. 
We also notice that there was two caps in that were wired for hanging lights and just had to jump on that to get some awesome lighting and a cool look. We headed to World Market and got 2 pendent lights. These were a bit tricky to install, but it got worked out between Dee and Grandpa Brad.
We spend so much time cleaning everything up that we decided to change out all the electrical outlets and put in fresh outlets and silver faceplates. SOOOO much better. It is funny how little changes like that really finish a space and clean it up. 
Hanging the art was only made easy because Lluvia was there to help. She is a wiz at math and we got these all hung, level, and perfectly spaced in less than 15 minutes.
Our logo was printed from CG Pro (30×30 canvas). 
We picked up accent pieces from Ross to tie in the color.
We needed a couch and chairs and since World Market has pretty much everything we wanted and needed we headed back for the sofa. Dee didn’t think we would be able to fit in our Toyota Sienna, but IT FIT!!
It looked SO GOOD in the space. We grabbed the carpet at Lowes for a plush place to put your feet.
The chairs were another World Market find. They were a dark grey and tied in the walls and sofa. 
Time to print our signs! We found a great local sign shop right down the street on J st. (support local business always!). Signs Now was great! They walked us through the process, great customer service, and the price was unbeatable. I highly recommend them for your sign printing needs. OMG – and they are so pretty! It felt so real when we went to pick them up and mount them on the walls.
AND IT IS DONE!!!
We still are coming up with a work solution as this little desk just won’t cut it. We do not leave any computers or camera equipment in the studio, but we still want to be able to bring it in to work daily. I think we will make a floating desk between this wall and pillar. A follow up blog to come… 
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