Ode to a Little Room

I'm leaving my studio at the end of the month.

Later this month, I will climb the stairs to my studio, as it currently exists, for the last time. I’ll pass the neighboring strip club, fight with the back door lock, ascend with the aroma of hot Italian sandwiches, and enter my little room.

I started renting office space above a local restaurant in September 2023. I needed a place to work, and the 960-square foot house I was also renting increasingly lacked available space as the number of children in our home went from zero, to one, to two. My office space—my little room, as I tend to call it—became a 130-square foot refuge where I could focus and knew the mess was mine. Here I designed, collaged, photographed, read, and practiced my shooting form below the room’s tall ceilings.

In December, my wife and I bought a house with more and much needed space. Enough for a home office. My dad and I—okay, mostly my dad—are building it right now. The money I once spent on rent will go toward the mortgage and childcare and the myriad things an adult life and homeownership require a person to spend money on. I’m excited! But I am also sad, and a little nervous that bringing my refuge into my home will remove part of what made it special. “Bittersweet” doesn’t quite do the feeling justice. There’s probably a German word for it.

The closer we get to finishing, the more excited I become. I bought white paint samples from Lowe’s the other day¹ and gleefully poured over the chart of oak-patterned vinyl flooring my dad sent me. I’m daydreaming about where to put my reading chair and bookshelves and my Hamilton flat file cabinet. The sadness, and the worry that this new little room won’t be as special, has dulled—but not gone away completely.

I’ve never had these kind of emotions for a single little room before. It’s weird! This room is special to me because, in addition to being a much-needed retreat, it is also where I started taking my freelance book design business more seriously and started working my ass off. It’s a tangible symbol of that shift in my life.

Since my daughter was born 18 months ago, I don’t go to my studio nearly as often as I would like to. I’m home a lot, taking care of her and her older brother. An office in the basement means I can go whenever I like and I don’t need any amount of time to make the trip “worth it.” Kids are in bed and there’s a deadline? Down the stairs I go. But it also means the boundary between my new studio and the rest of my life threatens to be more porous. Just on the other side of the wall, there lies all of the boxes filled with crap from the move I don’t know what to do with. However, porous boundaries or not, what good is a refuge if you can never get to it? As much as I will miss my studio, the tradeoff is undoubtedly worth it.

I’m grateful for my little room. I hope its next occupant can feel how special it was, if just for a time.

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What I’m Reading (books)

I just finished American Bulk: Essays on Excess by Emily Mester. Loved it. One of my favorite kinds of books: A broad topic filtered through an extremely personal lens. Lots of underlining. I recommend it. Thanks, Matt!

I started reading The Likeness by Tana French for my book club with my mom. I don’t often read mysteries, but when I do, I really enjoy them.

I started reading Tomb Sweeping: Stories via Libby and the Kindle app on my phone for when I am getting my daughter down to sleep in her dark room. I love a good novel, but man, I really think the short story is the optimal fiction format.

What I’m Working On

Here’s a recent cover I designed for Simon & Schuster:

Here’s a recent one for Princeton University Press:

Thanks for Reading!

Thank you for reading! I mean it.

If you’d like to keep this newsletter going and help me say no to designing soul-sucking books about corporate events, email marketing, and raising capital, consider becoming a paid subscriber or buying me a coffee.

Until next time,
Nathaniel

1. One of which is called “Cozy White.”