How many square feet is your ENTIRE studio?

[Adam Schmidt]

This poll is to find out the square feet of your entire studio! This includes camera room, sales room, reception area, storage areas, etc. Everything!!!!

Ours is about 2,800 sq. ft. but about 1000 sq. ft. of that is unfinished storage space that will never be anything other than that. So, 2800 is what I'm going to show in the poll, but only about 1800 sq. ft. is usable. And of that, about 500 sq. ft. is EMPLOYEE only work area. Which leaves us about 1300 sq. ft. which is actually ever seen by any clients.

If you work out of your home, just list the sq. ft. used by the studio in any way.

[Cliff Roehn]

Hi Adam
My vote was 3-4000 sq ft. Like you, 2000 is always going to be storage/darkroom (its a dark, dingy,damp basement). Camera room is about 1200, sales area 400 and 400 production. There is an additional 1800 sq. ft. on the 2nd floor, for now its paying most of the morgage by being 2 rental units.
Cliff

[Shannon LeBlanc]

We just moved in a building this past April thats about 4600 sq feet! I love it!
I have 2 camera rooms , one is 1150 sq ft,the other is 2600! I have a waiting room thats about 400 , an office/production thats 400 and a preview/sales room thats 11x13 feet.
We leave most of the backgrounds set up and move the lights from station to station. It's really nice having all of the room!
O.K. Rick, 700$ a month, friend of a friend deal!
Shannon

[Rick Goncher]

Hey, let's make this interesting....how much do you pay in rent....just rent.....in other words, how much is the check to the Landlord every month?

And I have 1560 sq ft. 24 x 65, storefront and not a bit of unfinished space....we use it all......$2106 a month.

Interstingly enough, there is a warehouse half a block away 4K sq ft for 2000 a month. Not sure I'm gonna persue it though....

[Francis Farmer]

Mine is paid for!!!

Makes life a little easier, one less bill to pay!

My building is 60x60. The camera room is 25 x 60 with 17 foot ceilings. We also have different stations set up and just move the lights. I even have half a house for small kids photographs.

FF

[waldo berry]

Because I have consummed about half of our 3600 sqft home, I am saying 1800. I count the basment and den and the oversized room and the dining room. My wife loves it, becaus ethe place has to stay looking nice, we ahev the living areas seperated away, but the studio are is dual usable when we are closed.

[waldo berry]

Shannon:

That is a sweet deal. I was looking at a place two weeks ago that was an old mexecan resturant. Would have 3700 square feet and could produce three camera rooms, a gallary, work areas and changing rooms. Problem is they want 750K for it, and te payments would be to high. I don't think they want to move it to badly, I asked for info from the broker and I haven't heard a thing.

[Michael J. Plumeyer]

Hey!

I have 1200 sq ft.

600 sq ft is camera room.

300 sq ft is sales.

300 sq ft is storage/ restroom.

Rent? $1100 a month to a Middle Eastern Gentleman, who is not one (gentleman) by the way, and everyone hates him (he lives in Austin).

[Allan Sicks]

Basement Studio

My Studio is in the basement of our house. The basement has 2,500 sq ft and is all used for the studio. The camera room is 32' x 19' and has 10' high walls. We have a reception room, customer/computer viewing room, two dressing rooms, two dark rooms, a print spraying room, a print finishing room, and a 28 x 28 room for our main computer work room. This whole area totals right at 2,500 sq ft.

We also have the outdoor studio area.......more to follow.

[Allan Sicks]

Outdoor Studio

I am going to add the outdoor studio area which we use for most of our settings. This has really been a nice addition because we can offer so many more backgrounds for each appointment. We have really increased our client base with the outdoor areas.

[Adam Schmidt]

GOOD GRIEF! 2 of you have over 7000 sq feet??????? Man! That is a whole lot of space! I'd love to have that kind of room to make all the sets I have in my mind.

[Kash Johnson]

7200 sq ft with an adjacent loft apartment of 2400 sq ft. We occupy two old buildings that were once one big building. I guess they are again since we occupy them both now.

Best advice i can give to anyone. DON"T RENT......OWN.

It's the same argument that makes sense to you concerning buying a home rather than renting one. Equity is king...and man does it add up fast.

We have a total of 9600sqft that we own, 4800 is paid for and the rest will be in 9 years. The same size building, in a little bit better condition a half block from us just sold for $800,000. Now, I don't know what ours could sell for but trust me, we paid no where near that much for them.

So, repeat after me....I'm going to purchase my studio space....rent is bad....owning is good.

kash

[Rich Demanowski]

Due to draconian zoning laws around here, I'm not allowed to have clients come to my home, which is where my business is based.

So ... I guess I take it to both extremes at the same time ... I have 0 square millimeters of studio space, and the whole world (on the order of 510 million square meters) as my studio ...

[Keith Branch]

)WOW, I'm impressed with the diversity of spaces, guess it's true, size DOESN"T really matter

Shannon, what a DEAL!!!! My studio in TN was 4800sq ft and my monthly payment was $600, to my dad! At the time it was the largest portrait studio in the state: Jeff Shanes can atest to the fact it's nice to have the elbow space.

I've NEVER rented space, like Kash said, that rrent money gets you a place for one month, my mortgage gets me equity.

I bought the house I'm in now that had 3050sq feet and I added 2500sq ft to it that is 100% studio space, I use about 1/3 of the original house for studio purposes too, but a couple of those rooms cna be used for personal use. What's cool is that, according to what I've found out, I now own the largest portrait cameraroom space in Arkansas. Once you've had large, you can never go down in size (no comments please ) ----- sorry, it's the white russian talking.
Keith

[Heather Kallhoff]

ok, you guys have waaaay to much space. Ya ready? Sit down so you don't fall down... I have a whoppin' 586 square feet that is camera room/storage/sales/reception. Ya think ya have to be organized???!!! Oh, and did I mention my ceiling height is 8 feet?

But, I do have north light, so, I am ok with this...for now.

No rent.

heather