My Studio — From The Beginning
Y’all, my studio is pretty much FINISHED!! I just have a few paint touchups to do, a door to paint, a floor to clean, and two new door knobs to install, and that’s it!! THAT’S IT!!
I’m hoping to get the final pictures of it today, but to be honest, that probably won’t happen because I’m way to distracted by the concrete being poured right outside the studio window. There’s so much going on around here, and it’s so hard to stay focused on one single thing. I’m as excited as a kid in a candy store right now. 😀 So while I do hope I can get final pictures today, I think it’ll probably be tomorrow before I can do that, especially with it getting dark so early these days.
Anyway, before I show the final before and after of my studio, I wanted to take a minute and look back to the very beginning of this room and remind y’all of just how far it has come. It did take a while to get it finished (years!), but of all the rooms in our home, this room had the longest journey to get from its beginning to where it is now. And I’m just going to hit the highlights in this post.
Here’s what this room looked like when we bought the house in August 2013. It was a garage, and the floor of the garage sat about 16 to 18 inches below the floor of the breakfast room. This picture is looking from the front garage doors towards the back of the house. The white door you see on the left is now the doorway to the breakfast room.
The trusses were all exposed, and the dark wood made it look like a real mess, and it made everything look dark and small.
There were two garage doors on the front, although they were so narrow that I could barely get my car into the garage without scraping the sides, and my truck that I used to have (a small Ford F-150) wouldn’t fit at all.
Early on, my father-in-law helped me put up some drywall in the garage. My intention at the beginning was to turn the garage into my workshop.
So with that goal in mind, when I pulled the original cabinets out of the kitchen when I remodeled the kitchen, I put those old kitchen cabinets in here, thinking that I could use them to create a long worktop with lots of storage. That idea never materialized because the garage became more of a storage room.
At the time, the back part of the garage housed the furnace, but that thing was so scary that we got rid of it before our second winter in this house.
So after that, it was just a storage room. You can see the door on the left side of the picture below. That’s the doorway that leads to the breakfast room now.
Here’s a view of the other side of the storage room at the back of the garage. This area is now the storage closet in the studio.
And for the record, here’s a look at how the garage looked from the outside when we bought the house…
In the summer of 2017, we decided to turn the garage into my studio. I hired a contractor to do most of the big work, like removing the garage doors and building a front wall with windows.
They also raised the floor so that it was level with the breakfast room…
So in the summer of 2017, it went from looking like a garage to looking like an actual room in the house.
Another thing they did was take this mess of a ceiling…
And they redid it so that it had a much cleaner look, as well as a brand new beam to remove the sag in the ridge line of the room.
New French doors were put in the back wall of what used to be the back storage area, and a cased opening was put in where the single door used lead to the storage area. It looked much better, but we still had this low sloped ceiling that was only about seven feet high on the back wall, and hit just above the new French doors.
So overall, it looked like a room and not a garage anymore, and everything was looking much better. But this phase of the project was pretty expensive (about $40,000), so the project stalled a bit after this.
In the summer of 2018 is when we decided to build a carport onto the back of the studio. That solved so many problems. First, it gave us a place for a nice ramp. Second, it replaced the garage. And third, the addition would solve the problem of the low ceiling at the back of the studio. Here’s what it looked like before…
And here you can see how the addition of the carport allow for the raising of the ceiling at the back of the studio once the new roof was installed and the old roof could be removed.
So from the inside, it was no longer a sloped roof that was only seven feet high along the back wall. Instead, it now had this new roof line above it, allowing for a much taller ceiling inside.
We spent a lot of money on all of that (the initial cost of the studio construction plus the $22,000 for the carport), so we had to take a break and let our bank account recover. But we picked things back up in 2019 with having the room insulated with spray foam insulation…
And soon after, the electrical and drywall were done.
At that point, I took over and did the rest of the work in the room. I painted the walls in the main part of the studio and the back entry, and then I installed the hardwood flooring.
Then I sanded the floors, whitewashed the floors, and installed the wallpaper that I designed.
I also finished the back entry with this bold green on the walls, black doors, and a black and white chevron pattern on the floor.
In June 2019, I built the desk for the room.
And in August 2019, I built the first of two work tables.
By the end of 2019, I had gotten this far on the studio. Things were getting done. Projects were getting checked off the list.
And then 2020 hit, and everything came to a grinding halt. That year is a blur to me, to be quite honest. I did make some progress on the house, but my focus wasn’t on the studio. I finished the living room and music room, and then turned my attention to the guest bedroom, master bathroom, and home gym.
So it wasn’t until May 2023 that I decided to turn my attention back to the studio, and I started by redoing the floors. I hadn’t been careful with them, and had been storing random things in the studio, so the floor had stains on them. Plus, I was really wanting to do a painted design. So in May 2023, I started working on the floor…
I also decided to go with IKEA cabinets for the room, so I ordered and put those together.
In June 2023, I finally finished sanding and painting the floor with the new checkerboard design.
And since I had decided to use IKEA cabinets, I found that all of my electrical boxes had to be moved up several inches.
I finally got all of the new electrical boxes installed and the new drywall up in July.
Also in July, I redid the wallpaper in a much larger size to create more of a wall mural, and I installed that before the cabinets went in.
In August of last year, I also began installing the cabinets around the window in the office area of the studio.
By October, I had finished the whole mural wall, including a makeover on the original black pendant lights and custom touches on the cabinets.
After finishing that wall, I turned my attention to the cabinets just inside the studio door from the breakfast room.
And I had the crazy idea to use 72 different paint colors on the doors. The cabinet was finished at the end of October.
And the I gave the light in the back entry a makeover from black to gold.
In January of this year, I made the lined pinch-pleated curtains for the back entry…
And then in February, I got the rest of the projects finished up in the back entry.
In March, I finished the cabinets in the office area of the studio…
In April, I did a little makeover to the paint swatch cabinets. I had originally painted the cabinets black, but I decided it would look better white to match the doors.
In May, I framed the huge landscape plan, which I think is about seven feet tall.
And then I finished the rest of the long wall with some spray paint shelves, a frame for the TV (which I’ve now moved up a few inches), and a huge colorful calendar.
Also in May, I finished repainting the room (ceiling and walls), and repainted the work tables from green to this eggplant color.
In June, I finished up one of my favorite projects ever — the pendant light made of wood tasting spoons.
In July, I basically remade the desk so that it now has this more feminine look with a gorgeous walnut veneer top.
In August, I finally finished the closet, which now has usable storage after years of being unusable because it was just piled with stuff.
And this month, October 2024, I finally got the rest of the electrical work finished so that all of my lights and outlets now work.
So that is the story of my studio from the very beginning, and I can’t believe that this room, which has been a work in progress since the summer of 2017, is now pretty much finished. I just have a few tiny things to do, and the room will be done! It doesn’t seem possible, and I can’t wait to show you all of the before and after pictures of this room! Again, I make no promises. I’d love to have pictures for you tomorrow, but it has taken all of my self-control to stay seated at my desk while there’s concrete work being done right outside my window. So I might be a bit distracted today. But I’ll get pictured taken and uploaded as soon as possible. I promise!
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
All I can write is “WOW”…thank you for all of the work you’ve done and intend to do. I have read your blog since your condo days and always been interested in your design process. Can’t wait to see what you do next!
Oh my gosh, I completely forgot that it was the garage, unbelievable! Looking at your space makes me so happy!
The promise you saw in this house when you purchased it blows my mind! I would have run screaming, yet you saw, and were able to realize, a wonderful forever home. Congratulations.
What a journey! Inspiring to have watched you create a functional and useful studio space into beautiful work of art. It is a display of your talent, creativity and personality. If it was my studio, I think I’d find my self just sitting at the desk, looking around and taking in all the light and airy feeling of the room. It’s a room that energized a person and puts a smile on your face!
You are my home diy hero. Thank you for everything you’ve taught me.
Loved seeing the metamorphosis of this space. It’s gorgeous and functional. Perfect!
I have enjoyed every step of the way, it is, and has always been a gorgeous room, and now, even more so since you can use it as it was designed and of course on to more projects. I totally get the concrete pour and wanting to hang about. We did a huge project last summer with the front of the house and my husband accused me of taking so many photos that he swore he could actually see the concrete drying…I think he exaggerates.
Ever forward.
Cheers!
Love the timeline. I wasn’t sure how long I’ve been following you, but now realize it was sometime in 2018. I came in when you did the carport and raised the shed roof! Wow, time flies! Thanks for all the info and entertainment!
Just a wonderful tour, Kristi. Thank you. This room is such a testimony to your persistence and ingenious solutions to so many challenges. It has been a joy to follow the journey and most of all, to see the result. Your master bathroom bowled me over but this project might even top that one!
You will spend many hours creating new things in this room. How kind of you to allow us to share in not only the ‘what’ you do but also the ‘how’ processes.
Warm regards from Ecuador.
Wow, the room is amazing! As are you!
Really nice job! Your studio has evolved beautifully.
Kristi, I really enjoyed your blog today. I’m in awe with you and your genius. When you and Matt saw this home on the generous sized lot your genius kicked in. You saw back then what could be. I liked the way you had what was the old concrete garage floor built up to meet the height of your floor plan so your studio wouldn’t be on a step down. You have done an amazing job on every room in your home. I just can’t say enough about your talent and the way you never give up on anything. I’m saving this blog to show my son.
Random question — How did you get the calendar squares to finally stay on the wall?
I used yet another kind of tape, and then really big gold tacks.