Today is Day 1 of the studio build out. We decided to build out part of the garage to create a new studio space. This is not some fancy state-of-the-art studio creation. We are having two walls put up and doing a bit of sound proofing with insulation. That’s it. But it is still exciting!

My husband and I have been together for 20 years, and have gone on many adventures, and have the requisite amount of stuff to prove it. So one of our challenges is how to deal with the sudden loss of cubic feet to keep our many bins of assorted human and non-human remains (we are really into Halloween).

There is a mostly unused and unfinished attic space above the garage, which could serve as storage, but it requires support beams and reinforcement to hold the weight of all our stuff, which will also be undergoing a serious “does it spark joy” edit.

Our plan is to effectively divide garage in three. In the photo to the left, the brown tiled area will include the laundry, the enclosed space will be the studio, and the far area will comprise the remaining garage space. The area up above this ceiling will be more permanent storage, and some of the annual stuff (punkins!).

The result will be a room about 18 feet long, which results in a greater length than the ideal proportions of a studio space (given a ceiling height of 8 feet). Once we are able to understand the resulting acoustics of the space, we will figure out what it needs. We will learn by doing here. But I decided to track the progress of this endeavor, if for no other reason than my own person edification. And the additional square footage may be advantageous for recording, if the acoustics turn out to be good enough.

I dreamed about doing this for a while now, but it always seemed impossible. But with the support of my incredible husband and with a more simplistic approach, it seems like we will be able to accomplish this well below my projected budget, which is yet another reason to be happy about this endeavor.