The day has come and Rocket Queen is now open for business with Charmaigne and Danny inking creatively in the fabulous new premises. Here is the tattoo studio makeover story…

When we started the room was large and full of shelving with bumpy concrete walls, a rubbish ceiling, uneven floors and generally in a very sorry state.  It took ages to clear it, and a full skip load of rubbish had to be taken away.

The room has 3 windows, all with security bars which need to stay as part of the lease, which then led to ‘Inspiration No 1’-  a prison cell.

This room has to be highly functional, and also very sterile for Health & Safety standards.  Bearing this in mind, we decided to go for non-porous surfaces which are easily cleanable.   I kept thinking about the film ‘Dead Ringer’s with Jeremy Irons in his operating room, so took the tiles idea as ‘Inspiration No 2′ – an operating theatre.

I did want to bring in an abbatoir feel as ‘Inspiration No 3’, and use chains from the ceiling to hand screens from, but was rightly persuaded that it might scare off the clients!

We tiled all around the room with metro tiles and used black grout to make them stand out.  A new ceiling and plasterboard was added to make the rest of the surfaces smooth and hygenic:

The new upper walls were painted in dark charcoal grey paint, (washable but with a matt finish), and the lowered new ceiling was painted white to reflect light.  The floor is high grade linoleum for hygiene in a dark grey with a slight sparkle finish and it is non-slip.  To keep the room very clinical, we installed a stainless steel medical sink, and chose a variety of storage furniture in enamel which continued the sterile look. The white cabinets came from Ikea, and the black trolleys are actually mechanics’ garage storage systems.  The tattoo benches are adjustable so that clients can sit or lie any which way for tattoos on any part of the body.

As two tattoo artists work in this room, we bought and installed two medical privacy screens in case people want a private area during their sessions.  I changed the very dull plastic white pvc panels on these for new waterproof and wipeable fabric, (aka shower curtain fabric sewn into panels, and which is as slithery as hell when you sew with it!).  We used really cool retro patterns of tattoos and tattooed people for these.

Love this fabric!

As the room is predominantly grey, black and white we added some punches of much needed colour, with posters and original artwork by artists like Jacknife’s Chris Hopewell.

Before & After: really pleased with the transformation…..

There are two separate treatment rooms, which have been decorated in much calmer colours; one for laser removal and the the other for reflexology and beauty treatments:

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You can see the first makeover on the reception and shop area here…