My Converted Garage to a Design Studio: Take a tour!

We converted our detached, circa 1939 garage over the Spring this year into a design studio (you can read more about the start of it here) and I have been working in it ever since.  It’s awesome to walk outside in the morning with my mug of coffee, say hello to the koi and goldfish  in the pond, go through the ugly, Park Ranger brown gazebo (another project for another time), and settle in to work.

We lined the walls with cedar planks (that still smell woodsy) and kept the concrete floor.  I thought about a rug for this room, but when you have 95+ degree days in June, spending a few hundred dollars on a rug just isn’t appealing.  I also paint here in here and have the dogs roaming in and out so carpet seems impractical.  I bought a hanging chair for my daughter to hang out in and got the dining table that I use as a desk and the antique chair at Littleton’s Antique Gallery (a store that draws me in like a magnet).

The reclaimed shelves were donated to me from a thoughtful client who was renovating.  I kept the natural wood color on the two upper shelves and went with the natural wood Ikea brackets ($5 each) after a long internal debate where I decided I didn’t need $80 a piece iron brackets.   I painted the back counter white and installed 3 natural wood, Shaker furniture legs for support.

I couldn’t make up my mind on ceiling fixtures and was trying to do this renovation very low budget, so I went with yellow, industrial light bulb covers, which is something that everyone notices and comments on (hopefully a good thing).  My favorite custom cabinet shop in Colorado (OakTree Classic Woodworks) gave me the long roll of cork that we framed with inexpensive trim.