I Built My Dream Studio

This space. How could we possibly make this space the perfect office and studio? Well, it requires a lot of trips to Home Depot, where I first bought these big yellow tools that presumably were exactly what I needed to start doing this. Quickly this space devolved into chaos. It hit rock bottom on the day when there was just a giant pile of cabinets, appliances, drywall, and heaven knows what else, all stacked right here, in the middle of this front room. It's moments like these when you wonder if this is all ever going to come together. But then the building starts, more Home Depot, and shipments. So many shipments, so many boxes, there's hardwood floor, there's weird electrical problems that come up, and suddenly you're paying your electrician way more than you hoped you'd be paying him. But slowly it starts to come together. It starts to look like the kind of space that you want to be in, work in, create in, but there's still a long way to go. Next comes the visit to a rug warehouse, where a man who came from Afghanistan 30 years ago shows you a million rugs, and you decide how you'll cover your floors. And will these rugs actually dampen the acoustics of the room so we can get good audio? I sure hope so. Before you know it, the owner has forcibly invited you to his restaurant that's just right next door, where he gifts you piles of steaming kebab and rice and chickpeas and tea and beautifully fresh bread. Henry, do you love this food? Back to work. Your child is now sitting on the floor. Wait, is that asbestos tile? It probably is. I should probably get him out of here. Scan the internet for the right tile. Back to Home Depot. The boys are in their PJs because it's bedtime, but for some reason we have to go to Home Depot. I don't really remember what happens next. I just know that after a million trips to Home Depot and a million passes on this place, a million tiny details, it's done. This is what the place looked like when we bought it in December. And now, it looks like this. We wanted a space that didn't feel too much like a proper studio, but rather a place you would live in, spend time in. And while I had some of the vision for how it would be remodeled and what kind of countertops we would have, Iz was the one with the interior design vision. She put a giant effort into collecting a set of textures and designs that felt at once natural to us, but also interesting and like a statement. The space has all sorts of textures that mean something to us, like this Pendleton blanket that comes from our home state of Oregon, or this pillow that we picked up in a market in Oaxaca, Mexico when we were there in December. This beautiful tan couch was sent to us by Article, an online couch company that has also sent us these stools and this table. All of this providing a unified texture that feels so natural to the space, feels artful and yet comfortable. And all these textures atop these Afghan rugs that we got from that warehouse. And for all the gear people who are like, hey, we came here to learn about your gear, storage, and your studio workflow, but I will get to that, I promise. But just take a minute to just revel in the beauty of this room. Okay, so for all the gear people out there, here's something you're going to like. See these bars up here on the ceiling? This is a track with a hanging arm that allows us to mount whatever we need to. Microphones, light, a top-down camera. It can all be mounted right here, with the flexibility to slide back and forth along this front room. This front room is kind of our primary shooting space. We can shoot here, the couch, or if we need to get more of a studio look, we can pull down these seamlesses, which give us a variety of different colors to work with. Moving over to the kitchen, this is where you see my pride and joy. This giant slab of walnut butcher block. I worked really hard to get this sucker. It came from a woodworking shop in Illinois, and when it got here, it was just a raw piece of wood. And I spent a lot of hours beveling it, and sanding it, and oiling it, and it's safe to say that I now have a very special bond with this piece of wood. The kitchen serves a similar purpose. It allows us to film here, but it's a totally functional kitchen, with snacks, and most importantly, a nice coffee setup. We used this new setup from Fellow, it's the Stag system, and I've really liked it so far. Irving Farms, a roastery and cafe in New York City, sent us this beautiful coffee, and we love it. It tastes different than any other bags we've ever had in the house, and I'm just really glad it exists. Okay, so beside the kitchen we have this audio table, where we have two mics that are always set up, they're USB mics, and we can record voiceovers or podcasts. It's also a place where presumably we could have a meal, and if we ever have guests who want to work out of the space, this would be their place. Okay so now into the office area. But first, you probably noticed all these framed photos that we have around the space. These were given to us by a company called Framebridge, and I have to say, this has been one of my favorite parts of this whole experience. We take a lot of pictures, and usually only see them on computer or phone screens. So to see them in these giant frames all around the space, it's been incredibly gratifying. It's like art, with a memory baked into it. Okay, now onto the office. Remember now, it used to look like this. With new paint, and floors, and a bunch of decor, it now looks like this. The anchor to a good workspace is a good desk and chair setup. And for this, we are so, so, so grateful that we found a company called Fully. Fully is based out of our home, Portland, Oregon, and we just have fallen in love with these desks. They make these sit-stand desks that are totally solid. We have the bamboo Jarvis desk, with this subtle cutout, and I have to say, I'm in love. They have loads of accessories, like this laptop and monitor arm, or this magnetic hook, these file cabinets. Along with the desks, they sent us these chairs. They look kind of funky, but the whole point of these chairs is that they get you moving throughout the day. You can sit in a bunch of different positions, which I've found to be really good for my very fidgety self. These desks and chairs have changed my world. They've made my workday a totally different experience. So by the way, I'm going to plan to make a video entirely about my working setup and hacks that I use for a more efficient day, but let's move on to the rest of the space. Izz intentionally gave me this entire wall to myself, and I am very, very happy about it. And to populate it, of course, I chose my favorite thing in the world, maps. I found this old map on eBay that was in like an elementary school, and it's been lovely. I found myself just staring at it during the day. You'll also see more of these Framebridge frames, and some miscellaneous photos from Switzerland and other travels. I'm going to keep adding to this gallery and changing it up. Okay, let's talk about gear. Finally, gear. Everyone's here to talk about gear, I'm sure. I love pegboards. I got these cheap pegboards at Home Depot and spray painted them black. And this allowed us to take all of the gear and accessories and camera stuff out from under our bed and our children's closet and in every crevice of our house and put it here. It took a long time to develop a coherent system to get everything organized and up on this wall, but the payoff has been huge. Over here we have this closet with a charging station that is firm and permanent. It's the first time that I've ever had any sort of solid, permanent charging station, and it's been a dream come true. SD cards, tripods, they all have a place, and they're not competing with four people living in 700 square feet any longer. Iz, of course, has her desk and her wall, which is full of gorgeous plants and knickknacks, many of them coming from our travels. So that's our studio. It's been a big investment of time and money for us, but after years of recording voiceovers under blankets in my bedroom and stuffing camera gear into our children's closets, we're finally investing in a space that spurs creativity and gives us room to make more stuff with the least amount of friction possible. We're excited about this place and what it means for our future, and you'll be seeing it a lot more in our videos. I just want to clarify one thing really quickly. In this video I talk a lot about the products that we use, some of the stuff was sent to us for free. I want to be clear that all of these items are things that we actually use, and none of the brands that sent us stuff paid us or told us what to say. They had no control editorially over what we said about their product. The stuff that I bought personally, I will leave an Amazon link for. I made sure that all the brands that sent us stuff, we get no kickbacks if you decide to go buy a Foley desk or an article couch or something from Framebridge. I wanted to make sure that there was a separation from their influence in how we talked about them. All the stuff that I bought for myself on Amazon, that stuff does support Izzy's channel. She has an affiliates account with Amazon. It's important that I clarify this because I want you to know that everything I talked about here was 100% based on my own evaluation and critique and usage of these items. So thanks for watching, and let me know if you have any questions about this space.