The Garage & Studio

And by that I don't mean the collection, I actually mean the garage. It's a project....the garage. Well, it's barn actually, but you know....

Back in 2013 I managed to acquire a wreck of an old farm house sitting in a bit of land but more importantly, it came with a whole heap of outbuildings. Somewhere for the cars. I was sold.

The converted Dutch barn, part of which I use as the garage, is made up of three old barns joined together and into which 12 garage doors sit; 6 either side. On one side, two doors open into the same space, which makes for a decent size; and that's the garage. However, it wouldn't be difficult to extend that space to make a much more interesting area. That's the sort of thing I'm toying with when I say that it's a project.

Top of the list is to install a bar and pool table - no explanation needed there.

I'm also in the process of.doing the space up. As I intend to do quite a bit of filming from within it, I want it to look half decent - brick paper, the old tool chests I have for the cars; these I found in another barn when I bought the farm. I've purchased some pics and a few other bits. Top of the list is to install a bar and pool table - no explanation needed there.

Here are some before and during pics. Depending on when I post this, there may be some 'after' shots as well.

The main room pre the brick wallpaper...

The pic at the top of this post gives you a sense of where I've got to with the garage now. To give you a better sense, here are three photos that do a reasonably poor job of a left-to-right pan:

And then, behind the Merc is an opening to where the Quattro and GTV are. At some point I want to open up that back wall to bring those cars into the room as well.

Upstairs is the studio. It's here I'll present the episodes of the Soul Machine channel from, if I can pluck up the courage to have a go. I also plan to set up some music kit so I can record background music for the episodes; though I suspect that will mainly be guitar. To give you a sense, here is a set of pics that show the construction of the studio. I just managed to scrape together enough wallpaper from the offcuts left over from the garage. It was a bit of a chuck-together, but I hope it will work. Here goes:

Since I started scribbling this post, I have tested some video to see how the setting looks etc. Perhaps I'll share those dreadful moments with you one day, but I now feel close to being ready to start filming, and I'm actually quite excited about it. I do however realise I'm incredibly lucky to have this space, not only for the cars and bikes, but to allow me a dedicated studio. I will try to do it justice.