Designing a Music Studio - Plans & Mood Board

It's a busy season of designing here at Casa Del Sol Designs! We are currently underway designing two projects, a new music and audio production studio for my husband and a Santorini-inspired dining room for a new client. Today I want to share with you the design plans for the music studio, which is a really fun project with some unique specifications and requirements.

Before we get into all the design details, let me give you a little context for this project. My husband has been running his business, Solar Powered Studios, out of our home for the last several years. When we moved into this home, we turned a spare bedroom into his music studio and office, using the small closet as a vocal booth. We made the most of the 15' x 10' room, designing it to fit his production desk, instruments, and seating for guests and clients. But 3 years later, his business (and instrument collection) has outgrown the space.

One of the reasons we bought this house is because it has a unique feature - there's an ADU (accessory dwelling unit) above our detached garage. The ADU is essentially a one-bedroom apartment, complete with a full bath and kitchen. It's relatively new construction and the previous owners did a beautiful job with the design. We loved the idea of being able to rent out this space to help reduce our cost of living, and also to have the option of one day using it for our own purposes. Well, that day has come! Our most recent tenant has moved out, and we are moving full steam ahead on turning the ADU into Nick's new music and audio production studio.

Before Pics

Design Plans & Mood Board

When we first started talking about the design of the studio, we knew it needed to serve several purposes:

• A space for groups of up to 4 to record podcasts and other audio projects

• A space for recording and playing instruments, producing and listening to music

• A vocal booth fit for up to 2 people for audio recordings

• A space for clients/guests to sleep

With the space separated into two rooms (the bedroom and the living room/kitchen), we decided that the main living room would be for podcast recordings and the guest sleeping space, the bedroom would be for producing and listening to music, and the walk-in closet would be the vocal booth. That said, we're still deciding on the final configuration, and we may make changes to this plan as we start to move things in get a better sense for how everything will fit. As a designer, I do my best to measure everything and plan it all out ahead of time, but sometimes you just don't know how it's all going to work until you're physically in the room laying everything out.

When my husband first came to me for help designing his studio, he gave me some descriptions of how he wanted it to look and feel: nature-inspired, modern, lots of blues and greens. Right up my alley! I love designing with nature as my inspiration. I got to work right away building a design board, measuring the space, and putting together a 3D model so we could start planning everything out.

Here is the initial design board and 3D model for the main space:

We are still figuring out the right furniture and layout for both rooms, but this gives us a pretty good idea of sizing and how things will fit into the main space. We are going with a rich green for the production room and a mid-tone blue for the main space, with a feature wallpaper on the back wall, which will be the wall clients will see first when they enter the main space. I think the space is going to feel very vibrant, fresh, and be the perfect backdrop for creative inspiration. We've got the paint colors picked out and have already started prepping and painting - so things are moving right along!

The production room and vocal booth designs are still underway, and I'll share more as those get further along.

We're both feeling very excited about turning this space into a professional music and recording studio and unlocking the growth potential of Solar Powered Studios! Be sure to follow along for more updates.

Love,

Sam