Lakewood artist expresses her own style in contemporary backyard studio

Lakewood neighbor Melanie Brannan heard plenty of objections when she built an art studio in her backyard.

Brannan stood her ground and decided to do things her way. And she pulled it off.

Her home in the neighborhood just north of Mockingbird Lane used to be her mother’s before she went to live in a retirement home, and the artist bought it in 2011. By this time, she had pivoted from her career in advertising design, which ended during the Great Recession, to creating commissioned art. She painted in her dining room and one of the bedrooms in her house before eventually building the studio in 2014 to have more room for her projects and to host events.

Brannan approached Justin McMillin of Richardson Residential to design and build the studio, and he was immediately on board.

“I go, ‘Well, we could just turn the garage into the studio.’ He goes, ‘We’re not going to do that, or I’m not going to help you,’” she says. “He goes, ‘We’re going to build a phenomenal studio.’”

Brannan gave three words when describing her vision – light, windows and contemporary. The space has recessed lighting on the ceiling, but the real light source is natural rays streaming in from the glass double doors and windows near the roofline and on the wall adjacent to the door.

The space reads as both a work area and a gallery. The walls are white, and the ceiling, outfitted with a three-blade fan, is high. The footprint of Brannan’s studio is 400 square feet, but it also has a loft area accessible by a metal ladder with wooden steps where she keeps some of her pieces, like a striking portrait of Prince. On the outside, the building is a tall prism with a flat roof that stands in direct contrast with Brannan’s regular-looking home.

“Everybody goes, ‘Why aren’t you matching the house?’ And I go, ‘It doesn’t have to match the house. It needs to match the feel I want,’” she says.

For the exterior siding, Brannan took a branch from a tree in her backyard to Sherwin-Williams to produce a matching paint color.

“They thought I was nuts,” she says. “I just wanted it to blend into everything else back here. I wanted it to blend into the colors that are already here. I didn’t want it to be the color of the house.”

Amid the modern details, the sliding barn doors that lead into a paint storage room and bathroom are a unique touch. Brannan says she salvaged the rustic wood from her old barn on a ranch in Aubrey, north of Lewisville Lake, and worked with a carpenter to turn it into doors for the studio. She lightly splattered paint on them to match the theme of their new home.

“I love these doors,” she says. “If I ever sell the house, the doors go wherever I go.”

Why? Because of the good memories that the barn doors evoke for Brannan and her fondness for old wood and folk art made from it. But her builder didn’t see the vision initially.

“When I told (him) what I wanted to do, he goes, ‘You can’t do that.’ I go, ‘Well, that’s what I’m going to do,’” she says. “Then he goes, ‘OK, I get it.’ And then he ended up really liking it.”

The wooden steps on the ladder were also repurposed, this time from the old zip line that used to be in the backyard.

Though she was pleased with the studio once it was finished, Brannan had to address an unexpected pressure.

“I was blown away with the building, and then I was petrified that, is my art going to live up to how nice the building is?” she says.

Of course, when she actually started painting in the studio, the space filled with “good vibes, good mojo.” Usually, she has music playing when she’s there and is surrounded by her dog and cat, the latter of whom has learned how to climb the ladder to the loft.

“When people come out here, they can feel like there’s never been anything negative in this room,” Brannan says. “People can feel that it’s just like pure happiness.”