Moving into an Industrial Loft

I'm an architect setting up an architecture practice in an industrial loft in downtown Los Angeles. My wife is brave enough to join me in this venture wherein we attempt to transform a raw, empty space into not only a business but also a place we can call home. The major advantage to living in a work/live loft is that the work commute is only 15 steps. The disadvantage is it requires effort to separate the 'working' zone from the 'living' zone in order to maintain privacy. The goal is to create an space conducive to a professional office environment where we feel comfortable and happy living. This blog will document our attempt to create a comfortable, habitable work and live space. For every problem encountered there should be a solution, and this blog aims to provide solutions both cheap and spendy, easy and hard.


The reason we chose a loft was because we felt we could only live in LA if we didn't have to battle the freeways every day commuting to work, so we decided to combine our work and live spaces. A loft makes sense for not only logistical reasons, but financial reasons. Setting up an architectural practice in this economy means making every penny count. We start with a fixed budget of $50,000.00 for rent, utilities and improvements. Let's see where that gets us.