The "garage studio" is all the rage these days, with untold hobbyists attempting to set up some space for family portraits or the occasional paid job. So I thought I would share what I did.
We bought a house a few years ago that came with an extra garage, a 24 x 30 ft. building with a 9 ft. ceiling. It had heat and electric but was otherwise completely unfinished. We could make it a shop, or we could make it a studio, so we decided to do both. That meant that compromises had to be made.
1) Paint color - White works best for a shop. You want a bright environment to work in. But it can reflect too much light if you're trying to control it to make pictures. The shop won that battle and so far I don't regret the white paint.
2) Lighting - Can lights in the ceiling stay out of the way of studio lighting gear and maximize available height. But they suck in every other conceivable way, so I went with some cheap fluorescent fixtures that screw to the ceiling and only cost me about 3 inches in clearance.
3) Shop tools and shelving - Anyone who ever used a studio knows you can never have too much space, so I kept the shop stuff and shelving along two walls, maximizing available shooting area. Access to the shop tools is often less than convenient, but the studio needs won that battle.
4) Dust control - Sawing, sanding, grinding, etc. will make things dusty in a hurry, and I don't want that all over my furniture and studio gear. So I take those operations outside when possible and run a shop vac attached to power tools when I need to make sawdust in the shop.
5) Odors - It's bad enough the place looks like a shop. I don't want it to smell like one too! Anything oily gets cleaned up or thrown out. If the place gets odiferous I open the overhead door and let it air out.
I have an air conditioner that goes in the window in the summer, and behind the privacy screen there's a couple shelf brackets and a short closet rod to hang clothes on. The pictures should explain the rest.
Larger version here.
Shooter's perspective:
The shop side:
