The Basement Studio Before and After

So this space has basically been done since early 2014, since we finished it for the CWTS contest, but we're only getting around to posting it now because we apparently suck at blogging. 

Basements are usually a place where used furniture goes to die. No one really seems to care about basements; they're below ground, unstylish, cold, dark, and get no love! It's "just the basement" so who cares, right? SO WRONG! 

Often times throughout the basement renovation we heard "why don't you just do something basic and easy and just get it done - it's just the basement, it doesn't need to look good".  In our opinion, the basement is an extension of the house and therefore shouldn't be neglected. Even though it took a while to get it finished we are SO glad we didn't cut corners. As with our living room, we saved money by purchasing affordable pieces from Ikea, Target, and even Walmart; and mixing them with more expensive higher end pieces. We also threw in a few cool DIY projects!

When Chris and I were on the hunt for a house we were really looking for a spot with a good basement ceiling height. Probably not something you hear from a lot of buyers. We had an offer on a different house that had 9 foot basement ceilings which would have been really great for a photo studio however we were outbid. In hindsight we are SO glad that fell through because the home we have now is much better and has more space. Even though our basement ceilings are only 8 feet, the space still works and the rest of the house is ideal.

When we first viewed the house, half of the basement was unfinished and half was an 80s nightmare. We tore down the wall separating the space and built a new wall that would separate the workshop and laundry room from the main studio area. 

Couch: Ikea; Side table and yellow stool: Target; Stump Table: DIY; Rug: Walmart; Arch lamp: Elite Living; Yellow cord light: Plog-It + DIY maple bracket; Prints: DIY; Workstation lamp: Winners; Coffee table, yellow pillow, and blanket: Borrowed from SAM Design for staging for CWTS.

Nothing in the "finished" part of the basement was salvageable. The walls and ceiling were a warped mess with stucco and visible drywall seams so we tore it all out and started from scratch.

For a layout, we decided to use one side of the studio as a sitting area so the basement was still a usable hang out space, and if we had clients over they had a place to wait. The door next to the arc lamp leads to a secure camera closet equipped with security cameras that feed into our home automation and security system. Some items in the reveal are borrowed from SAM Design that we used when staging the area for the CWTS competition (like the bench/table, yellow pillow, and the throw). 

The opposite side of the studio we keep empty to accommodate for photoshoots. We have enough space that we can leave our lights and backdrop set up rather than having to pack it away all the time. The bank of cabinets along the back wall gives optimal storage for extra items. One closet is dedicated to storing lighting and studio equipment if we need to clear the space. The centre cabinet houses a hidden door to access the crawl space behind.

We used laminate flooring rated for basements and that worked with the type of subfloor we used. Chris built the stair treads with birch plywood and stained them a similar colour to the floor. We picked up some rough pine and tried some different techniques to get the burned, barn board look on the accent wall. See tutorial here. 

Chris channeled out a section on the bottom of the treads for LED lights to light up the treads since the stairwell is fairly dark.

In addition to the stair lights we also installed three fluorescent strips down the stairwell wall. It's now one of our favourite shooting areas for a quick lighting setup (see photos here). We painted the walls and ceiling in the stairwell flat black to contrast with the white walls and pick up on the black couch in the studio.

We used the alcove across from the staircase as a standing workstation for laptops/ipads. We installed a USB outlet to use as a universal charging station and have a multitude of iPhone cables on hand in the wall mounted pencil holder.  We repeated the burned wood accent wall from the stairwell and made a matching floating desk.

Originally we had purchased the arc lamp for the living room, but realized it fits the basement much better. Again, we get lots of "that lamp is too nice to put in your basement" from people.

Left: We DIY'ed a bracket lamp from a Plog-It and some maple. Right: We used one of our dining chairs in the corner for extra seating which can be easily moved back upstairs when large crowds come for a meal.

As mentioned, we shot these after photos for the CWTS competition and couldn't use some of our items for the reveal since the contest was supposed to be anonymous and people would have recognized some of our pieces. We borrowed a few extras from SAM Design for the shoot and then replaced the bench with our CWTS Round One project, the DIY Nelson Bench which we use as a coffee table. We substituted the G. Ramano yellow pillow with a large camera print pillow and the wool throw with a grey throw we already had.