When we purchased our home seven years ago, I had a dream to use the garage space as a studio.

Before and After of my Photography Studio Makeover on a Budget.

The layout of the three car garage was a bit awkward (for parking a third car) and I thought I could use half the space to create art. I wasn’t sure where to start and had some pretty involved ideas about the conversion of the space. Eventually, I realized that I had spent far too much time with indecision and wanted to get started as this would be in a work-in-progress and a shared space to hold a ping-pong table for my now fifteen year old.

A few months back, I visited my friend Deb in Virginia. Deb has a beautiful mid-century home with epoxy floors that I fell in love with and thought I would do something similar to my garage studio. Through Dur-A-Flex, the epoxy company, I connected with Mike, a local contractor. He quoted around 6.5k for the metallic epoxy floors which was out of my price range. I needed to find a cheaper option for my Photography Studio Makeover on a budget. He gave me a couple of other options ranging from $800-1500. I had another estimate from a different contractor for a solid epoxy floor and I quickly realized that Mike was far more skilled in installing Epoxy flooring. Our floor had a moisture issue yielding a chalky powder which was not addressed by the other contractor. Mike made multiple trips to see me and answer all my questions which made me feel comfortable with him.

My inspiration for the studio was an industrial look and I wanted to retain the existing concrete floor. While the cheapest option retained the look I wanted, it also was the least suited to longevity. It was quite an effort to get the space cleaned out and I didn’t want to have to do it again anytime soon. I decided to go with the middle option which was a glossier look than what I had hoped for.  However, it has been growing on me and I am enjoying the space.

The second part to the equation was brightening up the space. I had interviewed a few painting contractors and was got a range of quotes. Luckily, Mike agreed to paint as well and it was a lot easier to have one company work on the job than hiring two people to time it all perfectly. The painting involved the ceiling, walls, the cinder block (part of the foundation) and removing the baseboard and adding texture. To go with my clean aesthetic I wanted a white and found picking a shade wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Thanks to my photographer friends, I got several recommendations including Alabaster

I wanted to brighten up the space and decided to paint the walls, the ceiling and the cinder block white after removing the “fake baseboard.” I found that picking a white wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Thanks to my photographer friends, I got recommendations on various shades of white including Alabaster, Simply White, I tried a few different shades of white and settled on Decorators White from Sherwin Williams.

5 Tips on things I learned through my journey of the Photography Studio Makeover.

1. Pick a contractor that will let you pick the paint company of your choice (if you are picky like me). Some of the painters I interviewed were not flexible in letting me use a brand of my choice as their price included paint from a specific company. I didn’t want to be tied to the brand as it was more important to find the perfect shade of white color.
2. Buy paint samples to test out in your space and paint a large enough square to be able to check out the color. I got this tip from my photographer friend Lisa after posting my teeny sample squares in my instagram stories. I also tested the colors on different walls as light can vary.
3. Did you know you can get any shade of paint irrespective of brand mixed at any paint shop? For instance, I got a sample of Decorator White (a Benjamin Moore color) from Home Depot and Sherwin Williams. They both looked different as you can see in the image below.
4. It might be a no-brainer that the base color of the white paint determines the shade. But it was a new discovery for me. The default base used by Sherwin Williams was “Extra White” which wasn’t bright enough for me. I was about to give up and go to Benjamin Moore and the manager suggested using the base “High Reflective White” which did the trick. It was much brighter and cleaner which worked perfectly for what I was looking for.
5. Register your account! By doing so at Sherwin Williams and a promotional sale, I was able to save 30% on the paint pricing.