MATTAPOISETT — Bethany Jay’s favorite thing to hear from someone about her store is that they’d like to move in and live there or hang out inside and have a coffee.

“That makes me feel really good because I’ve done my job,” she said. “I’ve made people feel welcomed.”

Jay operates The Home Studio, a home decor store that recently opened inside Mattapoisett’s Ropewalk Mall.

“We’re very happy to have her,” Ropewalk Mall owner Michael Sudofsky said.

An interior designer and artist, Jay said she wanted a space in which people could find things they’d love to take home with them.

“I think home and community and the idea of sitting and staying a while and feeling comfortable is important, and so I wanted to create a space that would allow people to bring that to their own home,” she said.

The Home Studio operated in New Bedford for about a year prior to moving to Mattapoisett.

In 2021, Jay was diagnosed with stage 0 breast cancer. The diagnosis was the “kick in the pants” Jay needed to do what she had always wanted to do, she said. After treatments in 2022, Jay opened the store in its New Bedford location in April 2023.

“My whole thought process for this store is to grab the bull by the horns and make everyday life exactly what you want it to be,” she said.

Along with the home decor shop, The Home Studio contains a studio with a large table and several stools in the back corner of the store. Classes covering watercoloring, seaglass art, denim mending, sourdough baking and more utilize the studio.

“I’m big on community and making people feel like they belong in a space and feel really comforted in a space and that they can stay a while,” Jay said.

Above all, the Home Studio is about home. Jay said it’s important to create and make beautiful and comfortable a space inside which “you create your life.”

“I think it’s just such an important part of life to enjoy all the mundane things that your day-to-day life brings because your home is exactly what you want it to be,” she said.