NJB Update: New Studio Space! (Patreon)

Hey lovely Patreon supporters!

My next video is in editing, but I wanted to give a quick update as I've been missing-in-action for a few weeks.

Up until now Not Just Bikes has been produced from a room in my house. No, not really a "room", more like a "nook" off of the livingroom. It's been manageable, but it hasn't been convenient, especially when it comes to voice recordings, podcasts, and video calls/livestreams.

This was becoming increasingly difficult as our kids got older, as I was having to move all of their stuff out of the way in order to do anything. Plus, with them going to bed later as they become teenagers, working out of a nook wasn't cutting it!

So, I finally broke down and got a dedicated studio space!

I managed to find a ridiculously good deal on a commercial space through a friend-of-a-friend. Like, a crazy good deal. But nothing comes for free: the reason it was a good deal is because the shop that was previously there went out of business and left all of their stuff behind ... plus the shop hasn't been renovated in decades.

So for the past 4 weeks I've been working hard to dismantle broken furniture, collect various garbage, install carpet, paint walls, install soundproofing, and generally make this space somewhat functional as a video production studio.

I was going to wait until it was "done" to take some photos, but I realised that it's not going to be "done" anytime soon. So here you can see two photos: one of the sparsely-decorated but functional "refurbished" studio space, and another of the giant pile of junk I had to pay a service to dispose of. 🫣

It's nothing fancy right now, and it's consuming a lot of my time, but I am very hopeful that having a dedicated space will help a lot: I'll have more hours in the day that I can work on Not Just Bikes and, especially, more hours I can record audio/video. I'm now going to be able to do podcast episodes of The Urbanist Agenda more often, and in generally it will allow me to be more productive.

Thanks for all of your support! I definitely could not have done this without your help!