The scenic route to a home photography studio

Some of you may vaguely be aware that The Wife has a photography business. Her business has grown steadily over the past two years, actually surpassing the milestones and goals set forth in her business plan (this is good), to the point that last fall we decided she needed some studio space. The bulk of her work is on-location, weddings, events and portraiture, but occasionally jobs come up that simply call for the controlled environment of a studio. Plus, she wants to experiment more with lighting techniques, which also requires a studio. In light of that, we agreed that we'd convert garage into a home studio.

That, my friends, is easier said than done. Our old house in Temple had a large attic quite suited for storage, as well as extensive closets and other storage areas. Our current home in New Braunfels does not. The attic is tiny and cramped, and the closet space is quite limited--typical of modern subdivision building designs. The upshot of this is that the garage has served as a storage unit from Day One--table saw, lawn mower, comic boxes, bicycles, wagons, Star Wars toys, Little People toys, Christmas decorations, you name it. The most viable option was a storage building for the back yard. From then to now, the idea lay fallow, other than an occasional cull that went to local charitable thrift stores. But this spring changed things. The Wife has been booked nearly solid for the month of April, and May looks to continue that trend. Fantastic! But it drove home the fact that the studio couldn't be put off any longer.

I spent an entire weekend clearing out, cleaning out, throwing away and donating a huge swatch of accumulated detrius. A trip to Lowes resulted in a 10x8 garden shed kit and plywood flooring (this one hurt--the cost of the shed would've gone a long way toward buying a particular lens The Wife wants, or a couple of photography software programs). I took a shovel and hoe and went to work in the backmost corner of the back yard, clearing out rampant weeds and smoothing out the largest irregularities to approximate a level building surface. This is not an afternoon project, mind you. I put together the edges of the building's floor several days ago, and yesterday I completed the internal floor frame. Happily, once all that was put together, I discovered that the width of the floor is indeed level! Joy! The depth of the building is slightly less so, but a few bags of sand should shore that end up nicely. With the floor frame completed, and feeling quite industrious from that accomplishment, I pulled out the plywood for the flooring and sprayed down the surface with copper-based insect repellent to guard against termites and other nasties. Today, if things go according to plan, I will spray them down with weather sealant so they'll be ready to cut and install this weekend. The walls and roof need a calm day with no wind for erection, and I haven't had any of those for quite a while. Still, I can put together all the braces, beams and supports in the interim, waiting for opportunity to present itself. I hope to have the building finished within a couple of weeks (yes, I know this is a small building, and Tim Allen would have it finished in 30 minutes. I'm not him).

A 10x8 storage building isn't large enough to hold all the contents of our garage, even with my recent culls. I know that. But it will hold the biggest items, the bulk of them, and give us breathing room to deal with whatever bits and pieces are left over. Then the real work begins. I can't wait...

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