New Photo Studio III: The Saga Concluded

Well, if you are wondering what I have been up to lately I have been working my butt off getting this project finished. We started this project back in April and are just now wrapping it up four months later. As fun as it has been I'm really looking forward to being able to spend a couple weekends not worrying about the next phase of construction and maybe do a little camping and hiking with my family.In the first two blog posts in this set I talked about how we built a shed to store most of what used to be in the garage, in part two I talked about how we took down the garage door and framed in the opening. The final phase was a whopper and consisted of adding electrical outlets and lights, adding insulation, adding drywall, painting, staining the concrete floor and adding baseboard and trim. It makes me tired just writing this all down, luckily I had a lot of help from my family and friends.

There was only one light in the garage, a crummy looking exterior light fixture in the middle of the ceiling that wasn't powerful enough to light the space. There was also only two outlets, not really a great setup for what I was going to need. I did a lot of research and decided on can lights for lighting. I didn't want something that hung from the ceiling and might get in the way of me taking photos later.

Installing can lights

My father in-law helped me install the 12 lights and five new outlets. It was another really long day. It was great to actually get a good look at the room with the new lights, it wasn't looking so much like a cave anymore. We also added a couple of exterior lights to the front of the studio on either side of the french doors.

With that done it was insulation time. We had talked about trying to do it ourselves, but thought we might actually save a little money and get it done better/faster by hiring a company to come out and do it. Because a insulation company buys in bulk they can get a better deal on material. We had a couple insulators come out and give us quotes and it looked like it was going to be a little more to pay someone else to do it (about $100) but we thought it would save us some time and they would probably do a better job...Long story short I wish we would have just done it ourselves. The guys who came out to do the insulation made a bunch of mistakes and ended up holding up the drywall because we had to wait for them to finish.

Insulation going in

Lucky me my dad is a drywall master and was able to get all the drywall done over a weekend. After the drywall was done the guy he works for was nice enough to make a few trips out to spray two coats of primer and texture on the walls for free!

Drywall finished

With the walls ready to go we got started painting. I had a really hard time picking colors for the studio, I think I about drove my wife crazy obsessing about it. Here are a few things I found when researching what colors are good for a studio. White is good if you want your walls to bounce light back onto your subject. Black does the opposite and absorbs light. Bright colors aren't good because they can cast color onto your subject.

Primer and paint

If this studio was strictly going to be used for photography and nothing else I would have whitewashed floor to ceiling, however the room is also going to be an office for my wife and I so stark white would be a little too "clinical" for us. Other options would have been to use curtains in the area I'm going to be shooting.

I chose to go with white on the ceiling so I could bounce light off it if I wanted and 18% grey for the walls and painted one wall that I wont be shooting around a little darker grey. 18% grey is a great neutral color and pretty close to the color I had in mind for the studio in the first place.

The floor was another hard choice. We originally were going to go with a wood laminate but, decided to stain the concrete floor that was already there. We had been wanting to try concrete stain for awhile but didn't have a good spot for it. Concrete stain looks great and is much cheaper than laminate.

One problem we ran into was the concrete footings around the floor, they stuck out a few inches and got gradually deeper from the back of the room to the front. My father in-law came to the rescue again and made some custom baseboard that could fit over the top of this.

Two coats of concrete stain and sealer

Here is what the studio looks like pretty much finished. There is still some work to be done, but the bulk of it is finished. I plan on posting some new photos after a month or so once I'm settled in.

(little messy, sorry)

My assistant's (wife's) desk

My desk

Here is a rundown of some of the expenses for this part of the remodel. (approx)

Flooring (stain, sealer) = $200
Paint = $100
Insulation = $500
Drywall = $300

Originally we had estimated somewhere between $1,500-$2,000 for this project and it ended up costing around $3,000. Keep in mind $3,000 was pretty much just material, most of the labor was done by friends and family.

I strongly encourage all you photographers out there working in cramped little corners of your houses to build, or convert an existing room into a studio. Having a designated work space is very important to a efficient work-flow. Rather than spending twenty+ minutes setting up all my gear for every shoot everything is ready to go when I need it.


This is the third and final post about the process of converting my garage into a photo studio/office. Here are the links to the first two parts.

Part #1
Part #2

If you have any questions about this post
please email me at
travismanley@hotmail.com

New Photo Studio II: The Saga Continues

If you dont already know I am in the process of converting my garage into a photo studio/office. Here is a link to part #1 of this post http://twcdm.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-photo-studio.html

Here is the latest update.

In phase one we moved everything we could out of the garage and built a shed to store it in along with buying a canopy to park our car under.

Phase two was all about getting that garage door down and framing in the hole.

Here is the garage before we took the door down

I have pulled down all the trim around the door

Halfway done


A quick shot of the door, opener and rails off


The material for framing in the door and the new french doors


The opener and torsion spring


We got studs!


Speaking of studs, lol


My father in-law was a big help in getting this done


All done, just need paint


And were done!

Im really excited to have this part of the conversion done. So much of the work leading up to this point was just to get everything out of the garage and demo work. Its really nice to see the project coming together.

All this work was done by my father in-law and myself. I paid a professional to take down the torsion spring that helps open the door because I read it can be pretty dangerous. It took the guy about five minutes to release the tension in the spring and he said its really not too dangerous if you know what your doing. I figured $45 for the peace of mind of not having to stress out about ripping my hand off while taking it down myself was worth it.

I was surprised how easy it was to take the garage door down, It took my wife and I maybe twenty minutes.

Farming in the door opening, installing the french doors and putting up the siding was a pretty big project. It took most of the day to finish this project. My wife and I painted the day after.

We are going to install some exterior lights on either side of the french doors and eventually maybe a window on the left side of the doors.

This project has really been a great experience so far. It has been a lot of work, but it is very rewarding to sit back at the end of the day and think about how its all going to look when its finished.

If anyone out there is considering converting their garage into a studio, office, bedroom, bonus room, etc I highly recommend it. Remodeling your garage is probably one of the easiest most cost effective way of adding square feet to your home and increasing the value of your house.

I thought it might be interesting to keep a running total on the price of this project so far if anyone is curious.

8x8' Storage Shed = $650
10x20' Canopy for our car = $150
French doors = $400
Material for framing in the garage door and siding = $200
Torsion spring removal = $45

Total so far = $1,445

So the next few stages of this projects will be installing lights and electrical outlets, insulation, drywall, painting, staining the concrete floor, and baseboard and trim.

Keep checking in for updates.


Want to buy my old garage door?

http://olympic.craigslist.org/hsh/1167255341.html


Link to part #1 of this post http://twcdm.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-photo-studio.html
Link to part #3 of this post http://twcdm.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-photo-studio-iii-saga-concluded.html

New Photo Studio!

I am excited to announce after months of trying to come up with a solution to my lack of studio space I have come up with an idea...drum roll please...I am converting my garage into my new office/photo studio!

My current office/studio is a little over 10x10' and my wife also has a desk and computer set up in there, needless to say its a little cramped. You try adding a model or two and it starts getting silly. I can waste half a day just taking out enough junk out of my office and setting up to take photos.

I know a big home studio is a luxury, but just think of how much easier it will be to do a shoot when everything is already set up and good to go. Our garage is also much bigger than we need (500+ sqft). This remodel adds a lot of squarfootage to our small house which is around 1,100sqft.

The first problem I ran into is where am I going to put everything that was in the garage? Luckily my wife and I have moved five times in the last five years so we didnt have too much junk collected.

Step one was building a shed to store what was in the garage. I found a shed kit at Home Depot and with the help of my brother and father was able to get most of it built in one day.

I thought it might be fun to post some photos of the process.

Here is the foundation

The walls going up


Moving on the the roof

Little help from dad and bro

Painting supervised by my wife and son

And done finally!

Now that we have a home for the little odds and ends, where to park the car? I looked around on Amazon.com and found a good deal on these canopy's. Its a bit of an eye sore, but it is mostly hidden by our garage and some trees. Its only temporary until we can build a new smaller garage next summer.

I really hope we dont get a bunch of snow this winter

Alright, now that we have a place for everything that was in the garage (most of it) time to start the remodel. Luckily our garage is in really good shape, no rotting, etc. There were some shelves I had to rip out and about a million random nails stuck in the walls.

The garage with everything in it before we built the shed and canopy

After getting most of the odds and ends and the car out

The view from the back door looking at the corner where my desk will be.

Looking in where the new front door will be

This is as far as I have got so far. The plan is to frame out the garage door in the next couple weeks, then electrical (adding outlets, lights, cable jacks, etc), insulation, drywall, painting then flooring. Hopefully the remodel will be done in the next month or two.

Check back in for updates.

Here is a link to part #2 of this post http://twcdm.blogspot.com/2009/05/new-photo-studio-ii-saga-continues.html

You can read the final post here http://twcdm.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-photo-studio-iii-saga-concluded.html