Mayhem’s Big Move – Part 1

How could we ever make that work?

It was a question we’d asked ourselves over and over and over as thoughts of moving away would pop up in conversation. It had been clear for a long enough that a move was in order. Our kid needed a yard. And now we had a new puppy.

Kid + dog = need a yard (however small) of their own to play in.

We didn’t originally think we’d be moving out of Cincinnati, because “how can you move when you have a long established/brick and mortar business right here?!?!” But we knew that the brick and mortar asset was no longer an asset at all. More than 70% of our photography shoots were happening on location and having nearly 3000 square feet of overhead to maintain and pay taxes on, no longer made good business sense.

But you can’t leave this location! You’re an institution in our town. Main Street won’t be the same without your studio! You can’t leave!!! … all lovely sentiments from well meaning folks who never offered to re-roof our old historic building, or donate to the “pay our taxes on this place” fund 😉

Years pass, business changes, and if you don’t recognize the need to change with it, you just might be in trouble. And so, last fall, we sold our historic building and moved our business operations to our home. After about a month, we were questioning why we hadn’t made that move a couple years earlier.

There were minor logistics to work through, but the transition was fairly easy. The walls, however, seemed to be closing in a bit. Business operations were one thing, but when we had high volume jobs, production work overtook most of our living space and our garage.

We needed to get serious about finding more space if we were going to work from home.

And don’t forget a yard!

to be continued…