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FeedSecond Street Spectacular
Photo by Chris Martinez
The office of IM Design
Here’s a challenge: Turn a gritty storage space into a colorful live/work locale with an open floor plan. Rising to the occasion, Jeff Fenton and Chris Martinez, who together make up the interior design company IM Design Studios, decided two years ago to expand their home and design space—and found a former plumbing-supply business on Second Street as the perfect setting.
“In 2006, the design business was growing to a point that we needed to move it to its own location,” says Fenton, a former GAP executive who left Seattle for Santa Fe six years ago. Selling a Stamm home they’d renovated in nearby Casa Alegre, he and Martinez wanted an urban environment and the convenience of living near downtown. “We wanted a live/work space, but with three dogs and a cat and the need for some gardening space, we couldn’t find anything that existed,” Fenton explains. Then they stumbled on the warehouse, with a good price tag and a few bonuses to sweeten the deal: the structure had radiant-heated concrete floors and plumbing for both a kitchen and washer/dryer. They closed on the 1,400-square-foot property a few weeks later and started remodeling, with a $30,000 budget.
The renovation effort included installing a new kitchen, with cabinets from Pittman Brothers; framing the wall of their master bedroom, along with a laundry and storage closet; finishing a loft storage space as a reading nook, accessed with a ladder; and staining and sealing the concrete floors. They also extended the coyote fence to the front of the building to create a small garden, through sliding doors that open from the living room to an outdoor living area. Then came the tough part: pulling the design together.
This they achieved primarily through careful use of color. “We wanted a contemporary space, but also a warm space, and we wanted it to feel like Santa Fe,” Fenton says. “This pillow started everything,” he says with a laugh, holding a Kravet fabric-covered throw pillow covered with a series of rich brown, ocher, and orange spheres, its colors the inspiration for the entire home. Around that time, artist Cathy Aten, a friend, was going through some old paintings and gave the two first pick. Now four of her early oils hang in the living room, offering an unexpected but complementary tone to the room’s color scheme.
For the office, the two wanted a completely different color palette, “to differentiate the two areas,” says Fenton. Step into the 400-square-foot office of IM Design Studios and you’re greeted by pale blue, gray, and olive green. The spark here: a multicolored geometric block rug that incorporates the distinctive hues. Fenton notes it’s the only way bold colors will work together. “Make sure they’re connected somehow,” he says, by anything from a pillow to a rug or a painting. Then add design details to carry those colors throughout the room. In this case, the theme extends to the exterior of their space in the form of a striking combo of dark-gray and green paint. With the former facade, “Everything seemed sterile and commercial—and smaller,” Fenton says. This is a perfect testament to Martinez and Fenton’s skills—they’ve designed homes both large and small for numerous clients in Santa Fe—proving color and creativity can go hand in hand, regardless of raw materials.
“Before, this building didn’t really stand out in the neighborhood,” says Martinez of the original muted stucco structure with its white garage door, which served as another ordinary business. Now, he points out, “it adds a little character.” Info: imdesign studios.com
