The Studio Under the Stairs

I have been doing a ton of livestreams and video podcasts this year. I prefer to present at a standing desk and my office is not well set up for this.

I have been using the bar in the basement, but it is a pain to set up and break down a temporary studio.

In addition, my wife has a bunch of gear from an abandoned photography business.

So, I spent the holiday weekend converting some unfinished space under the basement stairs into a studio.

Step one was a background. I went with inexpensive soundproofing panels (about $50 from Amazon). I doubt they offer any real soundproofing but they look nice.

I added two shelving rails to attach accessories and decorations. For example, I hung a few AWS and Kiro branded sweatshirts for a recent livestream.

Next, I added a standing desk (about $150 from Amazon), the studio lighting my wife had, and an old TV we replaced when the sound stopped working. Ignore all the dangling wires. I’m still making adjustments. I’ll clean it all up once the positions are final.

The view above is awful, but nobody sees it except me. The camera only sees me and the background.

The last step was to 3D print a few accessories. Top left is a simple coat hook that I used to hang branded sweatshirts in the pictures above.

Bottom left is a bracket to mount alternative backgrounds. My wife has white, black, blue, and green collapsible screens.

Finally, I just learned that you can print an SVG image! I guess that is obvious, but I never thought to try it. So, I printed a Kiro logo to mount for the Kiro Livestream.

Overall, I think it came out great, especially given the budget of about $200. I’m looking forward to using this in upcoming episodes.