Building a Studio???

[nkmaurer]

I am currently in a dilemma and could use some advice.

First of all my situation is I just started my business after graduation a few months ago. My studio right now is in my parent's basment which is fine for now. I am getting married in a year and we are currently looking at houses, except my problem is I am looking for a house that could handle a business (basement/building). That is the number 1 thing I am looking at unlike others in my family.

So I would like to hear from those who have built there own studios or others who use there house as well. I am debating if I should turn a detached house garage into a studio or if I would be better off saving the money from that and go ahead and build a building on the land for my studio? Obviously money is a factor but if I could work out building a studio now I guess I should save the money from finishing a garage.

An ideal studio that I would think about building would be a red barn, if the land we get is around a wooded area. I could use help on lay-outs and sizes of rooms so I could get an idea on the cost of a building.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I am basically having to make a lot of important decisions in my life right now, graduation and starting a business, getting married, looking for a house etc... I could use all the help I can get!!

Noelle

 

[jstuedle]

I am in the process of converting a building I built over 20 years ago into a studio. It was original built as a garage, 24' wide and 40' deep. The back 16 feet is partitioned off so the camera room will be 24' X 24'. The ceiling height is about 8'10". Anyway, our home would now be a cool gallery/studio but we are comfortable with it as is. When we bought in 1980, the old garage needed torn down and we built two buildings since. If you are looking to buy a home, buy in an area that you can have a business, I think it more practical to build a purpose built studio instead of converting a basement. Ceiling hieght is a major concern with most basements. Shooting distance is also a problem, I like 20 feet min, but prefer something more like 36'.

 

[Big Mike]

That sounds like good advice. I think your major concerns should be ceiling height and distance (overall space). I agree that a barn style building would probably be ideal. My Sister recently purchased a piece of property with s great building. It's a three (or four) car, detached garage...but it's built like a barn so it has a rather large loft. They mentioned that the previous owner did use it as a photography studio at one time.

The company I work for, makes and sells 'portable' buildings. Arch style tent buildings etc. I have often though that if I had a large property, I would just buy one of our buildings for a studio. It would be much cheaper than a permanent structure and because it's technically a portable or temporary structure...the tax is much less than a permanent structure.

 

[sabbath999]

Most importantly, make SURE you are 100 percent on top of any zoning laws and homeowners association rules regarding running a business in your house. Many, many places in the US do not allow home based businesses that involve customers coming to the premises.

It would really bite if you bought a house, got it all fixed up and then found out that you can't legally operate a business out of it... better to know in advance.