Hobby Studio Build: Part IV (Wrap Up)

Hi all! 

It's been a few months since I did an update on my hobby studio build, so here's the final chapter on this year-long project. 

When I last reported the siding was just installed, which I think looks quite good, especially considering we had pretty much forgotten what we had ordered with the litany of Covid-reasoned shipping delays.

Next up was the exterior lighting. I went with two sets of two LED sconces, both along the exterior facing the greenspace, and illuminating our interior courtyard. For further safety and security, I augmented the sconces with a few small motion sensitive LED potlights installed in the eaves.

As we were heading into cooler weather, I was very keen to get the interior fully insulated, drywalled and painted, so late August was a very busy month taken up with these tasks.

First, we put in R24 batt insulation into all the vertical wall spaces.

I also installed a in-wall split air conditioner/heater. It will be handy for those hot summer days (we had a LOT of those this year), and will help augment the heat during the winter.

Unlike the nasty old pink insulation, this stuff wasn't too itchy and went in fairly quickly.

Then came the vapour barrier...

...the (incredibly heavy) drywall...

... and the taping, mudding and (super dusty) sanding.

After a coat of primer, I painted the walls with four coats of a fairly innocuous pale yellow. 

After the paint dried, I had it all trimmed out with simple pine with just a plain clear coat on it. I sort of like its plain, minimalist look.

...then I had to celebrate this milestone with a game with friends!

Okay, back to it. For the upper section and roof deck I was lucky enough to negotiate a  discounted price to have spray foam installed. I'm glad I did this as I found it really did a great job in sealing and insulating the upper space, and only took about 3 hours to have done. Win!

I'll probably have the ceiling finished in pine tongue-and-groove for a Scandinavian look, but that will be down the road as a late winter project. 

For the flooring, I found these groovy interlocking foam tiles that have a faux wood finish. They were as cheap as borscht (working out to less than a buck per square foot), can be cut to fit corners/edges with a craft blade, and provides a nice, insulated, cushiony surface over the concrete floor.

Once that was in, then the real fun stuff started, with the moving in of shelving, along with boxes (and boxes, and boxes) of hobby stuff.

Billy is your friend.

As a recap, the footprint of the space is roughly 350 square feet, with 9 foot high walls (allowing an extra few shelves of storage on all the units). The studio can comfortably accommodate a 6 x 8 gaming table with around 4 feet of floor space around it. So, quite a bit of room to get up and walk about during games without feeling too hemmed in.  

There's still lots to tweak and fine-tune (perhaps a bespoke gaming table?), but as you can see with my smug, satisfied smile, I'm very happy with how the whole project came off, and am looking forward to hosting friends to many hours of fun in the future. 

Thanks for dropping in folks. I hope you all have a terrific week!

Next up: My minimalist ECW project

- Curt

Hobby Studio Build: Part III

It's been several months since I've posted an update on the hobby studio. Well, it's been bumbling along in fits in starts, but progress has been made. 

The main overhead door was installed in January after a 5 month delay. It was sourced from an American company. Apparently being a 'favoured trading partner' has its limits, as our order was bumped 4 times by later-arriving domestic customers. I was not impressed. Anyway, better late than never, here is a shot of the door, finally installed. Funny thing is that, being a gaming studio, it hardly gets opened, but it looks nice and I'm sure the next owners will make good use of it. 

We plunked down for a model that offered a bit more insulation, which should help during the colder months.

After living with it for a few months we found the west wall of the studio was rather bland looking, and so decided to retrofit it two thin horizontal windows (found at the ReStore recycling) to add a bit more visual interest. They're also nice in that they introduce a little more natural light into the space.

As the interior was not yet insulated and heated, the onset of Old Man Winter enforced a pause on the project.

Early this spring we picked out our siding, and after four months of delays (again due to Covid) it was installed just last week. 

This is the interior side, facing into our courtyard. That's Eddie, our siding contractor, doing his thing. 

For the exterior siding, we went with a vertical bat profile as it seemed more in-line with the design of our house. We also decided to clad the four corners of the studio in teak stained pine boards for it to better tie-in with the other design elements on our property. Here are a few before and after shots:

We hope that the overhead door and corner cladding adds a bit of warmth to a fairly austere design.

Next up in this project is completing the eavestroughs and the exterior lighting. After that, we'll finally get into the fun stuff: the interior work to finish the game room. 

Thanks for dropping in folks - I hope you have a terrific week!

- Curt

Hobby Studio Build: Part II - The Patio Doors Are In!

The hobby studio moves forward, slowly but surely. We've had a few delays with the closing in of our hobby studio, but this should be expected in these strange times. That being said, our sliding patio doors finally arrived (yah!) and we had them installed just before the snow flew last week.

The sliding doors are 9 x 7 (w x h), so will provide a nice source of natural light for the interior while allowing us to step out onto the patio during the warmer months. They are triple paned (and so are as heavy as sin), which will help with the heating and cooling.

Next is the main garage door. As I mentioned previously, the garage door is a bit of a conceit as the space will probably never see a vehicle in it, but it will help for resale value down the road. Right now the opening is covered with plywood sheeting - not the most elegant solution, but it keeps the elements out.

The building inspection can't be done until the space is fully enclosed, so I'm sort of at an impasse until the garage door arrives. Of course it was a special order (nothing can be simple with us), so I'm not expecting to see it until mid December. Sigh. As they say, good things come to those who wait... I'll post an update when we've had some significant progress.

Thanks for dropping in folks - Have a great week!

Up Next: An Annual Announcement!

Hobby Studio Build: Part I

Hi All!

Back in June I had mentioned that I was planning to build a hobby studio on our property. Now that things have progressed apace, I thought I'd make an effort to chart it's construction through the blog as I've always had a vicarious thrill watching others with their game-room projects.

As a bit of background, our house, while great in many respects, is somewhat lacking in not having enough space for a dedicated hobby area (yeah, I know, first world problems). This is further underscored with me often hosting our gaming group's weekly gatherings, which involves using our dining room table, with a 5 x 8 blue foam 'WarBoard' as a topper. This is something I really enjoy doing, and the arrangement has been adequate over the years, but it's always been somewhat cramped and requires a bit of work to set-up and tear-down each time, especially for the bigger games.

We had considered finding another house which could better accommodate our needs, but, to be honest, we're just too picky. We really like our neighbourhood and the overall design of our existing home so it was next to impossible to find an alternative that was in our budget. So what we did instead was start exploring the idea of building a detached structure on our property that could serve as a hobby studio and additional storage. This way it would add value to our property, being it could also be used as a garage, and, better yet, would allow us to stay in place without the unknowns of a new home, a new neighbourhood and the pains of a move.

With this in mind I pulled out my measuring tape, paced-out the yard and started sketching a few ideas of what a studio might possibly look like. After I had an idea of what was possible, I secured a designer to provide  a set of professional drawings.

The plans have gone through a few revisions, but the core elements remain the same. It has a low pitched roofline so as to better blend with the look of our home, which is mid-century modern in design. The footprint of the studio is roughly 20x20, which should allow for a good sized gaming surface while still having enough space for storage. I also went with a bit higher wall height (9') to allow for taller shelving and, again, eke out a bit more storage. 

Once we had a set of plans to work from then the next step was to remove the two existing sheds that were on the proposed building site and source the trades for the work.  Thankfully, the sheds were quite well constructed and in good shape, so finding buyers didn't turn out to be too much of an issue.

The pre-existing sheds before removal.

Next step was to demolish the existing concrete pad and the bordering fence. 

The side yard, now clear of the sheds, is ready for the demolition. 

There was a several month gap where I waited for approval from the city to proceed with construction. This actually worked out well as it gave me extra time to line up the contractors (concrete, construction, electrical and roofing) and to ponder how we'd finish the structure (windows, cladding, etc.).

Once I received the green light from the city I had my concrete guys demo the site, make insulated and reinforced forms and then complete the concrete pour. I also had to get the power and telephone people in to temporarily take down some lines for our work, but it all went off without a hitch.

The bobcat skidsteer making short work of the old concrete and fence...

Note, we put in an in-ground power socket near the center of the floor so we wouldn't be tripping over cords for laptops or projectors while gaming.

The two black pipes on the right edge are for a possible future sink.

Scoring the concrete pad on its axis to reduce chances of later cracking.

Once the pad had set-up for 48 hours, we were ready to erect the prefabricated panels and roof joists for the base structure. This was a 3.5 man job (I was the .5). 

It's just like LEGO! The prefabricated parts arrive onsite.

Parts just trimmed off the sprue...

Finally the roof joists go up and the the electricians begin their work inside.

This space will (hopefully) house sliding patio doors leading out to the courtyard.

Access door to the studio.

Not shown here is the metal roof we had installed a few days after the main build. Now we're just waiting for the sliding patio glass doors and the main garage door and the structure will be sealed up. With COVID, the supply chain has many delays so we have to be patient. I hope to have an update showing their installation in the next few weeks. After that I'll schedule the building inspection and then start planning for the insulation and the interior. Wish me luck.

Have a great week everyone!

Curt, out.