In the past few months Wren has shed a 6 year skin as we moved premises. In 2014 Wren moved out of my home and into its own premises at 10 Rhodesia Road (read the story here). A shared “studio” with paper art business Simple Intrigue. We moved in to a building with ivy creeping in through the windows but was thrilled to have an “away from home” creative space.

I shared with Simple Intrigue for a year who was then replaced with Infographics company Metaphoria who took a third of the space. Two years later, in 2017 they left and we took the entire space. We were continually growing and moving things around in the space but finally realised that not matter what we did, it couldn’t help enough.

The original Wren Studio Space at 10 Rhodesia Road. 2013-2019

As a goal driven person, the goal and dream list for a new space was started. It needed to be a bit bigger, have a lot of natural light (our space faced South which in the Southern Hempishere is the opposite side to the sun) and be an inspiring space.

In 2019 I found a new space: it had been empty for a few months and I thought it faced the wrong direction but upon viewing it I discovered large glass windows that let huge rays of sunlight in. 50m from our current space, with wooden floors, high ceilings and a courtyard, I fell in love.

Managing to get in a bit earlier Jeremy and I got the space ready. We removed old cupboards to discover pink wallpaper, repaired collapsed floor boards, cut open windows, flipped a door and knocked out a wall. We also asked local wall muralist Serge to get a head start on making the outside of our building, well, awesome!

In October 2019 we moved. When Wren moved out of my home in 2014 it took maybe two bakkie loads which is why I anticipated this move to take a truck load. Alas, as the truck filled up our boxed studio did not empty out. Three truck loads later and only then where we out!

It was exciting to “plan” spaces that are task orientated and it is wonderful to start a clean slate now that our business is “mature” and has a clearer identity.

We are now on the main road of the seaside town Muizenberg and you can walk into our showroom and enjoy browsing our shelves of sleeves and bags. In the front of this space we have two tables dedicated to showcasing paper products designed by other Cape Townian illustrators, artists and creatives. A space of product inspired and made with paper!

Off this space, as all old houses have rooms leading from one into the next, is an office and meeting room and further back we have a dedicated sewing room, cutting room, packing and labelling room and even a spray room.