After the change in 1884 to the Grand Ducal Saxon School of Arts of Weimar, he continued to study under the landscape painter Theodor Hagen.

In 1889 he moved to Berlin, attended the Academy of Fine Arts and painted a year with Eugen Bracht.

Study trips led Wachenhusen 1892 to northern Italy and in 1894 to Holland, where he was in Volendam and the artists' colony Katwijk.

On March 1, 1897, Wachenhusen married the Dresden opera singer Eva Baroness von Gillern.

As well as Müller-Kaempff, fellow artists Anna Gerresheim, Elisabeth von Eicken and de:Fritz Grebe had already settled here before him.

He counted with the painters Theobald Schorn and Paul Müller-Kaempff among the founders of Ahrenshooper Kunstkaten (art cottage) which opened 1909.