REMODEL & REPURPOSE: THE STUDIO

And last in the current trilogy of remodel and repurpose—the studio!
Here is where my dreams came true…

You should all know by now about the inconsistency of studs in this house—at least in the ‘new’ part. My studio would end up no different. In its original condition the walls were sheetrock on studs with some insulation and an outside sheeting of corrugated metal. Looked cute. Sounded real good in the rain. Once I spent any amount of time in there though, I had wind coming through where the foundation met the walls, a lot of surrounding noise, and —most importantly—had a real hard time finding places for nails for my paintings.
Game on.

Our plan was simple. Let’s cover the current walls in OSB from floor to ceiling. Then we’ll sheetrock that and add trim. That will not only give me and my neighbors a sound buffer, but should keep out some weather as well as give me the freedom to put a nail anywhere I want.

And again, here we run into the issue of lack of studs. Now, I know most people would have suggested that we tear down the existing sheetrock, add more studs and start again. But, we didn’t. We didn’t have the time, nor could we bear to find out just what might have been in those walls. Maybe someday. For now, it was stretching all full sheets of both plywood and sheetrock stud to stud. More shear strength and more solid.

Next, we pulled out the last remaining lower peninsula cabinets to create a bank of storage as well as counter space. We located a thick, ten-foot long butcher block counter top at our local Lowes and started from there. I had enough room to use one last corner upper too. Since this was originally an upper, we had to build a footer like the lowers. We also had to shim the whole thing because there’s a slight slope on my floor. And, unplanned at first, it turned out that I had enough room for a baby frig to fit as well. How cool is that?

So, in the end we spent about three weeks completing all three projects and only about $2000.00. Being able to remodel and repurpose saved us time, trips to the store, the dump and a lot of cash.