I have waited 8 long, stressful months to make this blog post…the Garrett Davis Photography studio is officially OPEN!! Located in The Village at 128 Yale Ave. in Claremont, California. I know what everyone is thinking, and I’ve already heard it from people around town…FINALLY.
When I first moved down to Southern California, getting into a studio for my business was not the first thing on my to do list. In fact, it hadn’t even crossed my mind. But then I caught word that a great spot in the amazing town of Claremont, California was about to go on the market. Lucky for me I was able to snag it before that happened. I knew it would be quite the project to get it the way I wanted, but I had no idea how extreme it would get.
I’m going to avoid getting into the many mishaps that happened along the way. Just think of the Tom Hanks movie “Money Pit” and you’ll get a good idea of what I went through. What I’ll do instead is walk you through the studio, and show a few before and after photos so you can get a good idea of the shape it was in before I got my hands on it.
HUGE thanks to Brent, Ed, Ryan, and Steve for their help with the remodel job from hell…
I’m going to start things off with a few “after” photos…
Here’s a quick panoramic of the office/client meeting area…
Alright, now some before and after photos. Here’s the stairs leading up to the studio…
At the top of the stairs we decided to put a door in the hallway to separate the front half from the back half. All the photos you’ll see are just the front half of the space, the back is about the same size, about 1,900 sq. ft. total space!
At the top of the stairs, you enter to the right and walk into the first gallery area. Here’s the before, the beautiful flourescent lighting was tough to part with 
And here’s what we did with the first gallery area…
Then you turn to your right and see the second gallery area, here’s the before. Note the archway is squared off, also note the awesome green carpet from the 70s that I wish I would have kept…yea, right.
Brent did an amazing job rounding off the archway to match the others…
This is looking back into the galleries…
Now you’re looking into the office/client meeting area, against the windows facing Yale Ave. See the wall? You won’t anymore…
Here’s the other side of that wall in the previous photo. I sure will miss that sweet wood paneling…
While taking the wood paneling down, another archway opened up and turned the front of the studio into one big room. Why in the world would anyone cover that up?! It really opened up the front and changed the look of the entire place. Also, check out the floor now! Can’t believe someone threw shag carpet over that…
This is looking the opposite way from the client meeting area, where my “office” is now. That box on the ground is covering a giant hole in the floor down to the stairs, which I found out the hard way…
Brent ended up building a wall where the box was, which opens down to the stairs. Pretty dang cool…
Now we’re looking from the far corner, behind where my desk is now. Yea, there was a lot of demo work to be done. This photo will always remind me why I avoid manual labor…
And this photo will always remind me that it was all worth while…
Here’s a few more photos taken during the day so you can see the change in light…
Here’s the front of my building. I have the entire top floor above the Italian restaurant, you can see my door down to the left…
And here’s a great view of downtown Claremont…
