A Day in Seattle With Mutuus Studio's Kristen Becker
Kristen in the studio
By Kristen Becker
Kristen Becker is a Partner at Mutuus Studio in Seattle, Washington. She walks us through her day, which involves urban farming, a maker space, being present for family, and lots of rain. Also read Kristen’s Madame Architect feature interview here.
6:00am-ish: Eyes open - no alarm clock necessary. I grab my phone and take a quick look at The New York Times online. I do the daily mini crossword as fast as I can. If I achieve under one minute, I feel like I am already winning the day.
7:00am: Our eight-year-old son has stealthily managed to sneak into our room and camp out with most of the covers at the foot of our bed. His feet are by my face and I am regretting downsizing from our King size bed to a queen for aesthetic proportional reasons in room. I roll out of bed and head to my home studio to attempt morning yoga. Afterwards, I prepare for the day. My wardrobe is casual - jeans, black or grey top, a funky piece of jewelry, and always red lips.
7:30am: I turn on our La Pavoni coffee machine to warm up then grab a bowl of kitchen scraps from last night’s dinner and venture outside in the rain to the chicken coop. We have six chickens - we bought them as chicks for a photoshoot and became urban farmers overnight. It’s a bit of an inside joke but they appear in our photoshoots often. I return to the kitchen where my husband Saul is brilliantly foaming my dairy free milk for my cappuccino. It’s our morning ritual that I love and we have been doing since we met when I was in my twenties.
Our son who is eight, and daughter who is eleven, are bounding through the house with our daily ritual of family breakfast, homework, library books in backpacks, etc. Most mornings are not too chaotic as we try to prep the night before as best we can.
8:35am: We are out the door. Although Saul and I work together, we drive separately as he is often working on some project that requires fabricating and running around buying parts and pieces. I drive the kids to school and he does the pickup.
En route, we listen to music and take the scenic roads as I firmly believe that seeing the water and mountains every day helps us all be inspired. After dropping the kids of I put on NPR or squeeze in a call to a contractor, client, a friend, or my mom.
9:30am: I am now at my desk and I generally spend the first hour combing emails and prioritizing tasks for the day. My desk is messy – mostly stacks of lists.
My husband Saul is offering to make everyone coffees before our team meeting. Sitting in front of a computer makes him uncomfortable – which is one of the reasons we expanded our studio to have a large Maker Space adjacent to the main studio.
12:00pm: Being a part of a small office requires intense discipline to both stay on task and to juggle - working on one project all day is a true indulgence. My partners Jim and Saul are religious lunch people. I am a reluctant participant, tortured to be torn from my desk - but once I have committed, I fully enjoy our time together.
1:00pm: We try to not schedule more than one meeting a day so we can focus on blocks of studio time for deliverables. I like to dedicate the mornings to mini-tasks and the afternoon to one large one.
3:00pm: Saul is off to pick up the kiddos - I so appreciate that he takes on the bulk of the childcare. I still squeeze in a pick-up here and there, but from a business perspective I tend to be more “billable” which determines who is going to do the pickups.
4:00pm: After school the kids get to chill and play – hopefully outside – but it has been raining for 30 days straight. We have a strict no-technology rule in the house during the school week.
5:30pm: Most days it is hard to pull myself away, especially since I reward myself at the end of the day with a task that I consider fun, like doing a rendering, updating the website, or competition projects. A text ping from Saul snaps me out of my zone. Being a part of a small studio, I do miss having more faces around so on my ride home I get my social fix with a call to a friend. Once, I get home though I work really hard at being fully present for my family – something that I have to consciously work on. Running a business can make it difficult to unplug and stop the mind chatter, so I have found that this discipline is necessary.
6:00pm: We are a family that loves to cook, and we try to have dinners at the table every night that we can. Living in Brooklyn previously, where we had such a small kitchen that we ate in the living room, makes both of us very aware of the space we have here. We value how our environment deeply affects the habits we develop. We are not religious – but always hold hands at dinner and go around the table to say our “Highs and Lows” of the day.
6:30pm: After dinner, there is some variety of gymnastics, dance, or class in which Saul and I juggle who-takes-who-to-what based on the multiple board meetings, events, and gatherings happening that week. We try to bring our children along with us to cultural events - the exposure has taught them good life skills. They are our future! Saul and I also indulge in two date nights a month thanks to grandma - the kids love it.
7:30pm: Our evenings change with the seasons. I relieve Saul for a bit and tackle bath time, homework, and lunches. He is a restless soul with projects of all types happening at once – cabinets, lighting, hardware, painting. I use this time to clean, fold laundry (so much laundry). Saul folds laundry like he has worked at the Gap. I think he is hiding something from me.
8:30pm: Evenings after eight is ‘quiet-time play’ then we typically all end up snuggled in the living room reading. I am a book grazer – I have multiple books on the go and surround myself in art and design books. The kitchen is my hearth and I enjoy the quiet putter of cleaning and resetting the room. A beautiful linen tea towel in its perfect place provides an embarrassing amount of pleasure.
9:30pm: We tuck the kids in and even though they are eight and eleven, I still sing my kids to sleep every night. My singing voice leaves something to be desired….and once my son said to me, “Stop the noise,” but I have persisted. Other times, I will improvise and play the piano for them.
10:30pm: By now, kiddos are asleep and Saul has emerged from his studio. I pour myself a glass of red wine (perhaps my second at this point) and light a candle. For anyone who knows me well, I am a candle connoisseur and its one of the few things I spend money on that feels indulgent. I equate candles to calm and peace, and they make me feel a timeless connection to times long past. Now that I am over forty my skin also looks fabulous in candlelight.
Saul and I hang-out in the living room and chat about our day, or I’ll retreat to my studio and sketch and do some work while watching some ridiculous show like “The Bachelor”. I still do drawings by hand. I sometimes use this time to indulge in research for our projects – finding the perfect vintage piece for a room or just obsessing and drooling over the amazing designs out there in the world.
12:00am: I am in bed – but awake, still searching for that perfect sink for one of my clients. My mind continues to buzz and I realize that limiting technology and social media in my future might be wise. I take my hippy cocktail of herbs to help chill my mind.
It is still pouring. I listen the sound of the rain and drift off.