Building a Miniature Painting Studio: Our Refitting Process Revealed
In this tale of four parts, I thought that I should document the refitting of our miniature painting studio and print farm!
We moved into the new house in the last month of December 2023, but unfortunately, no unpacking could begin! The house is an 18th-century thing that is both Grade II listed and within a Conservation Area. For those that don’t know, this generally means that any changes to the house must be in harmony with the era and that area. Any changes must go through the planning stage consisting of Town Planning, Conservation area & Listed Building permissions. Looking for an architect did begin though and we made initial phone calls. We decided to work on the garage first as it wasn’t 18th-century, it’s 20th-century, and it would be much easier with the planners!
As I wrote in my Newsletter, which you should sign up to right here, we found an architect in January. The plan was to build a print room below the stairs that led up to the studio above.
Let's Start This!
At the beginning of April, the electricians came first and did a First Fix of where the sockets etc would be going. The electricians routed the electrical trunking and ethernet through the garden and into the studio from the house. However, trying to plan out exactly where everything was going to go in an empty room was a real nightmare! I just donned my Neo outfit and said I needed sockets, lots of sockets.
The builders could start in mid-April, as the main job they were working on was held up due to finding skeletons ( they were working on a church!). They started by blocking out the printer room beneath the stairs, insulating that and getting the plasterboard on. Alongside that, they blocked out and plaster-boarded both ends of the studio above.
Looking at the two windows in the studio, we realised there would be enough light without the planned Velux. However, they were both in a pretty bad state – the one by the stairs could be renovated but we will need to replace the other one entirely. Of course, they are old windows and a weird size, so it was to be a custom build, which dragged things on.
The builders blocked out some storage for the immense amount of plastic I had in storage, once I had that figured out! After that, they quickly boarded out the walls and ceiling with the electricians making space for sockets!
At this point in the proceedings, the plasterers came in and got all of the walls and ceilings skimmed. Once we had the skirting board in place the next day the builders had to leave for a bit and I had to work out the work surfaces. I knew that I wanted a U-shaped work surface and I struggled a bit with various ideas for it. I wanted to use IKEA’s Alex drawer/ cupboard units as a base.
Whilst I waited for the builders to get back, I pondered exactly what colours I wanted on the walls. I decided on a cream colour for the ceilings and a close-ish colour match to the Alex drawers. Anthracite was going to be the colour for any skirting boards etc, as it matched the doors of the garage!
The plaster was fully dry by now and the builders attached the skirting boards, along with any profiles around the cupboard doors. This meant that the builders could paint everything and then the electricians could finish mounting the sockets and lights etc
Smartening Up The Painting Studio
We built the Alex drawers and put them in place, and we gave the worktop a few coats of oil. This has us around the 4th of June and in my brain, I was hoping everything would be in place by the end of the month. I had started to tell people in my Twitch stream that I was hoping to do hobby streams on the 1st of July!
The builders painted and installed the double doors to the printer room, the extractor fan installed and the pipe attachment was upstairs! Both extractors vent directly outside, with the second attached to the AC or the BenchVent spray booth. Having good ventilation for the miniature painting studio was a very important thing. The builders gave the wooden floor two or three coats of satin finish varnish and left to dry.
Downstairs, the only thing that was waiting was flooring covering and surfacing! The garage floor was already concrete, so the floor fitting people put down a levelling scree. When the scree was ready, they put into place a hard-wearing industrial floor covering.
So that takes us to the miniature painting studio being MOSTLY ready! The builders brought one window back to life, unfortunately, we are still waiting for delivery of the other window! On top of this, we are waiting for the installation of the blinds. The image below is the only one that I had showing the state of the window up close!
Let's Wrap Up Part 1!
Ultimately, it has taken about 19 months since I last properly painted and, even longer since I was 3d printing. I had to pack up the 3d printers at least nine months before when I packed up my brushes. This was because the resin I was using at the time was “somewhat” smelly and when trying to sell a house, that didn’t help!!! I did write a post sometime in 2023 about how Glorious Miniatures would be reopening the store in 2024. This is the first step towards getting that webstore fully up and running!
However, I now find myself lucky enough to have a dedicated miniature painting studio above the garage and a specific area to get back into printing. The next post will cover unpacking and hopefully some of the organising of the studio, so check that out here. I suspect it will take much longer to get “properly” organised, but it will be enough to get us going!
There is one thing that I had completely ignored – and that is the dreaded seagull. If you don’t know, they are quite noisy and the image below is one sitting on my studio roof! So I will warn you now for when you are watching future YouTube videos or Twitch streams! Do swing by my Twitch stream sometime or check out a video to catch a glimpse of our new miniature painting studio!
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