Cue Sabrina Carpenter, do you want the house tour?
At the very beginning of November 2025, it was decided to end our time at the rental studio that I shared in Parma. December would be our last month in the building, and not only did we need to move all of our stuff out and find somewhere to put it all, but I also already had sessions scheduled in January and had no clue where I was going to hold them! Eeek! I'm not gonna lie, I stressed, and I panicked, and I felt like I had no time to even think about it all, between all the rest of the things that were happening at the same time in life. I tossed around ideas and plans, and kind of impulsively decided to go with a pre-fab "tiny" shed studio. No sense in renting from someone else, and having it at my house just makes the most sense for convenience.
I quickly debated sizes and what seemed big enough. My son and I went to the shed sales lots in town and looked at all the different sizes and styles of sheds to see what I wanted and what would require the least amount of work on my part to get it operational! I found Homestead Sheds online, https://www.homesteadshedsusa.com/, where I could customize just about every option that I needed. I went back and forth with the sales rep on my design options, colors, materials, doors, windows, outlets, overhead lighting, and electrical wiring. Then building would essentially be fully finished with wiring and walls up, just needed flooring. We settled on the size and design, and I ordered my shed about a week after finding out we were leaving the previous studio.
Build time and delivery were planned for 3ish weeks, putting the potential delivery right around Thanksgiving. I quickly got on things like placement, permits, and with the help of some family, child labor & friends, got the gravel pad ready for delivery. Major thanks to all the helping hands along the way! We moved a lot of dirt by shovel and wheelbarrow!
Unfortunately, the build was slightly behind schedule, but the delivery couldn't happen due to all the snow on the ground at the beginning of December! Sigh. We continued to walk around all the props/storage bins and things I had piled into the house and couldn't find a free spot to put them in while we waited. Finally, I got the notice that we could schedule for delivery, studio delivery was scheduled for 3 days before Christmas! One guy unloaded the shed from his trailer and moved it into its final place all by himself. Then came the torture of waiting for the building inspection before I could start working on anything!! Luckily for me they were able to get out to do the inspection very quickly!
The great thing about a Christmas-time delivery was the fact that I get some time off from my full-time job around the holidays every year (usually at least a week, but sometimes almost two!) Once the inspector approved the building, I spent a WHOLE LOT of time over the next few days out there priming the walls & ceiling and painting. It took forever, and was quite possibly the worst surface I have ever had to paint (and, as a project lover, I've painted more than my fair share of things over the years!) The walls soaked up so much paint and primer, I lost count of how many times I had to go to Lowe's for more primer or more paint! Not to mention it was now the end of December/beginning of January and COLD, so I'm trying to heat the space to an okay temperature for painting with a salamander, which is loud, stinky, and makes it humid, so I'm opening windows and closing windows constantly, just not the ideal painting environment but after guilt tripping my kids into picking up a paint brush and helping me finish the ceiling I was able to get the space all painted in just 3 days. I also completed more than a few audiobooks in that time!
Next came my husband's part, getting the studio hooked up to a generator so I could have lights and figure out what I could use to try to heat the space. In came the revolving door of space heaters cause of course, it was -22 wind chill over the days of me trying to heat the place. I finally found a combo that seemed to work ok, even if not the "ideal" temperature. Eventually hoping to get a mini-split installed cause now that it's hot out (hot being an understatement on these heat advisory days), and I'm trying to run portable AC units, they just can't even begin to keep up! But that can't come before I'm truly hooked up to a permanent electricity supply. I also used this time to hang the backdrop system, one of my favorite purchases for the new space, on the wall with the help of my mom-ma & step dad to cut the braces down and get the paper rolls mounted!
Unfortunately, with the delays in shed delivery, I had to delay things like the floors getting installed and my first session of the year, since the studio wasn't quite ready yet! I had found floors that were exactly what I was looking for with Simple Flooring Solutions in Jackson, after debating over some I found at Menards, but I wanted to find a sale on them, and they just wouldn't go on sale! The bonus with simple flooring solutions was that they were able to sell me leftover product from another project at a great price, and I didn't have to install them myself (cause your girl was really not looking forward to floors). They came on January 16th and had the floors done in just a few hours!
The floors were installed by 10:30 am, and by 5:30 pm, I believe I had made at least 75 trips back and forth between the house and the studio to start setting up many of my newborn and cake smash props and studio stuff! Not bad for a day's work, but I still had SO much more stuff taking over my house!
I at least had my essentials moved out and organized for the start of my first few sessions in the studio in the following week. It was a little bare bones, but we made it work!
I've spent the last few months moving more and more items into the studio, figuring out what works to store and organize as much as I can in this little space, building a tiny deck with my son, and doing a little bit of landscaping (though the hostas that I transplanted are definitely not happy about their full sun location, might have to rethink my plant options!). There's still much to be done, but my tiny studio has been working great for my newborn, cake smash, and toddler sessions. Having it in my own front yard sure makes life easier for me with our busy life schedules. It's nice to be able to run out at 11pm if I need to and set up for the next day! Schedule your session with me and come check out the new space
