Growing up in the South, Nicole Reis never envisioned living in Wisconsin. Yet in Middleton, she’s created not only a home, but also a place where creativity thrives.
Nicole was born in Brazil, and her dad’s job as a chemical engineer took the family to Louisiana, Texas and even the Virgin Islands. She attended college in Dallas, but studied abroad in Spain and lived in Argentina for a summer.
Her husband John, in contrast, spent his entire childhood in the same home in St. Louis. After the pair met, John’s job as an implementation project manager for a major healthcare records company prompted them to put down roots in the Madison area. Two years ago, they built the house that they share with their daughters — eight-year-old Lauren and six-year-old Hannah.
The home is bright and airy, with lots of white and shots of vibrant color and pattern.
“We knew how we wanted our house laid out, that we wanted land for our girls to run around freely, and that we wanted warm wood floors that were already aged as if our home had developed character over time,” Nicole says. “We wanted a kitchen island that had enough room for our girls to do homework or draw while I cooked.”
Around the same time the couple decided to build their house, Nicole began working at her friend Sarah Van Dyke’s company Revel, a downtown Madison DIY studio that hosts workshops, events and a craft bar.
Her job entails testing crafts and vetting projects — from embellishing trays to etching old fashioned glasses to gold-leafing canvases — before they debut them at Revel, as well as creating all the company’s design elements. Nicole works mostly from home, since John travels often for work.
“My whole house is pretty much a backdrop for Revel,” she says. “Aside from our basement and garage being the unofficial Revel warehouse, you can find our house in the backdrop of most of Revel’s project photos.”
Fortunately, her light-filled home office sparks creativity.
“The office is filled with things that inspire me, props for photos and art supplies,” she says. “Not a day goes by that I don’t appreciate having this space to be alone to concentrate on meeting deadlines or on other days to let my mind wander as I watch color glide across the top of paper in pools of water. It’s therapeutic.”
Not surprisingly, Lauren and Hannah have caught on to crafting, and it’s an activity their mom encourages.
“We have an art closet on our main floor right in the middle of everything,” she says. “When we built our house, the blueprint originally intended the closet by our front door to be the guest coat closet. We altered the plans to have shelves built in and put in an art cart that the girls can roll out to our kitchen counter. They craft at that counter daily. From making banners to books, they are constantly drawing, coloring, painting and crafting.”
Keeping things convenient, organized and clean has been key to crafting together.
“The barrier I often hear about creating with kids is that it is a process to take it all out and put it all away again,” Nicole says. “Having the closet so central to where we spend our time makes it easy to pull out supplies on a whim. Everything has its own box, so there’s no dumping out or schlepping too much. The girls use reusable plastic placemats to protect the countertops from getting stained and makes cleaning up super simple.”
Keeping creativity a part of their lives has helped Wisconsin feel like home for Nicole.
“I never thought I would put down roots here, and it’s strange to think that I’ve lived here longer than any other place in my life,” she says. “I still consider myself an outsider who is learning how to enjoy winters or how to most efficiently blow snow from the driveway — things that I think native Madisonians would know by heart.”
But now she can’t imagine building such a life anywhere else.
“There’s nowhere else we would rather live,” she says.
Photos by Nicole Reis.