Lego Studio Update 2020 (Island)
Its been a while since I've posted any pictures of my (our) Lego building studio.
Last year, the room was completely renovated. Originally, the room was built as part of a house extension in 1985 to enclose a hot tub and shower. Since owning the house, we used the hot tub only a few years until we shut it down and converted the room into a playroom. The playroom then evolved into a family Lego studio. During this time, we built storage and work spaces around the hot tub. This of course resulted in inefficient use of space and inconvenient accessibility.
Finally, in 2018 we embarked on a much needed renovation. This involved removal of the hot tub and infrastructure, followed by new floor joists and framing. The shower was converted into a storage closet and the entire room received new tiled floor with under floor heating system.
Of the best attributes of this studio is abundant natural light emanating from large floor to ceiling windows and three overhead skylights. For nighttime use, the room is illuminated from ceiling mounted track lighting and a series of adjustable gooseneck LED worklights fitted along the entire length of the work spaces.
Lastly, a custom centre island was constructed from 2x Ikea Kalax storage units. The units were bolted together, a table top surface was installed (with bullnose edges) and heavy duty castor wheels were fitted to the bottom. This centre island not only incorporates integrated storage but serves as an immensely useful worksurface for staging models, sorting parts, or collaboration.
Storage and parts organization is a topic for another day. Suffice to say, we use Ikea Trofast drawers for bulk parts storage of major colours. We use wall mounted Kalax units (not shown) for less used colours, the island Kalax units store monochrome colour detail parts (e.g. slopes, round bricks, etc.), and finally the workspaces are completely surrounded by many 100's of small parts bins organized by part type and also colour if applicable. All storage is labelled using custom python software scripts which generate part thumbnails, part descriptions etc. and automatically lays out label graphics for a variety of Avery brand label sheets of different sizes.
It is a wonderful space to spend time being creative and having fun! Now I just need time to enjoy it!
Lego Studio Update 2020 (Island)
Its been a while since I've posted any pictures of my (our) Lego building studio.
Last year, the room was completely renovated. Originally, the room was built as part of a house extension in 1985 to enclose a hot tub and shower. Since owning the house, we used the hot tub only a few years until we shut it down and converted the room into a playroom. The playroom then evolved into a family Lego studio. During this time, we built storage and work spaces around the hot tub. This of course resulted in inefficient use of space and inconvenient accessibility.
Finally, in 2018 we embarked on a much needed renovation. This involved removal of the hot tub and infrastructure, followed by new floor joists and framing. The shower was converted into a storage closet and the entire room received new tiled floor with under floor heating system.
Of the best attributes of this studio is abundant natural light emanating from large floor to ceiling windows and three overhead skylights. For nighttime use, the room is illuminated from ceiling mounted track lighting and a series of adjustable gooseneck LED worklights fitted along the entire length of the work spaces.
Lastly, a custom centre island was constructed from 2x Ikea Kalax storage units. The units were bolted together, a table top surface was installed (with bullnose edges) and heavy duty castor wheels were fitted to the bottom. This centre island not only incorporates integrated storage but serves as an immensely useful worksurface for staging models, sorting parts, or collaboration.
Storage and parts organization is a topic for another day. Suffice to say, we use Ikea Trofast drawers for bulk parts storage of major colours. We use wall mounted Kalax units (not shown) for less used colours, the island Kalax units store monochrome colour detail parts (e.g. slopes, round bricks, etc.), and finally the workspaces are completely surrounded by many 100's of small parts bins organized by part type and also colour if applicable. All storage is labelled using custom python software scripts which generate part thumbnails, part descriptions etc. and automatically lays out label graphics for a variety of Avery brand label sheets of different sizes.
It is a wonderful space to spend time being creative and having fun! Now I just need time to enjoy it!