The Studio {Before & After}

I came across the "before" photos of my studio and realized that I never posted them! I think it's so fun to look back at (what is now) my amazing studio to see what it looked like just a year ago.

Just to re-cap the scenario for anyone new to my blog, I ran my photography business out of a studio in downtown Wichita from December 2008 til September 2011, when I moved my business back home. We've lived in our house since September of 2008, and had a separate building in our backyard that Adam had always used as a shop for his RC hobby. When I moved my business back home, I first used our guest bedroom as my office, then we decided to make our back porch into a studio for me. But the screened-in porch would be difficult to control temperatures in, so then we decided to renovate Adam's shop.

Best decision. I love it out here. It was one of those God-things...most people think we built this out here when I decided to move back home because really, who just has a random building in their backyard? It's so perfect.

We'll start with the before photos. This is the view from the doorway..it's mostly how it looked when Adam used it for his shop. There was a paint booth around that table on the left that they'd already demolished by the time I took this photo.

The HiTec sign is covering a door that we decided not to use. The wood was rotting around the door frame and it just didn't seem very stable. Below is the view from the wall you saw above. You can see the entrance on the left.

There was just a small window on the west side of the building, and I wanted lots of natural light. We found some windows for sale on the side of the street in our neighborhood (once again, how does that just happen?), so Adam's dad Ed started cutting out the wall for the new window.

The window hole from the outside.

Remember Sadie? She was essential to the renovation process. :) We miss her.

After the window was installed, Ed finished up all the sheetrock and trim work before we started painting. Below, you can kind of make out the 4 "white" colors I tried out before deciding that none of them were white enough. If you've ever seen my house, I'm a bright-colored paint kind of girl. But when using natural light for photos, the surrounding wall color will reflect off your subject's face, so I knew I had to paint the walls white.

Here you can see the installed window and new door.

Adam and Ed took down the nasty ceiling fan and installed track lighting for me.

I couldn't do without ANY color, so I painted the wall where my desk and supplies would be this great teal color.

And we painted the door. :) Ed also built a covering for the heater that you can see in the above photo, and he and Adam installed all the flooring.

Now for the finished product! I had an idea for a solid wall of shelves, but didn't know exactly how I wanted them. So one night after the kiddo was in bed, Adam and I went out here and used painters tape to tape off where we thought the shelves should go. Ed measured our tape and built me these awesome shelves! They're perfect. I even have a fridge for my Dr Pepper.