(Uplifting music)
- See, an office or a studio isn't just a room.
It's an acknowledgement that what you're doing
is important enough to deserve its own space.
Welcome to my 100 square foot,
tiny, mid-century modern YouTube studio, and office,
that also serves as a guest room, when we have guests.
Hi everybody, my name is Chris Hau.
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Now previous to this room being an office,
it actually used to be a guest room.
Now my fiance Lizzie and I,
purchased a townhouse in Toronto.
It's a four bedroom house, in November of 2020,
and the number one thing that we did first,
is we renovated the third floor,
so we'd have some offices to work out of.
So this used to actually be a green, ugly, guest room.
I mean, no offense to the previous owner's taste,
but it was not my taste, for an office to work out of.
Now, I went with a bit more of a
monochromatic color palette,
which focuses more on like whites, grays, blacks,
as well as you know, walnut.
That is a big theme in this office that you'll see.
Walnut.
There's going to be lots of walnut.
Which is also a very like
mid-century modern aesthetic and appeal.
So I went for like a Mad Men type of feel,
but like a modern madman
is my like, inspiration for this office.
Now the big goal of this space
was to make it extremely versatile.
Here are just some of the looks
that we've been able to achieve
out of this tiny, hundred square foot office space.
Now, before we get into the tour, I just want to mention
that everything that I will be talking about,
will be linked in the description below.
Some of them are affiliates.
Some of them are not.
But you will find them, below the fold, right there.
That's what people say, below the fold.
I just, links in the description.
All right, so let's kick start the tour off
with this nook over here.
There are some really special pieces
that I'm excited to tell you about,
starting with the most obvious, and in your face one,
this photo of a Mercedes-Benz,
that I took on a trip in Europe one time.
This is actually printed on metal.
This is actually a gift from my friend,
who owns a printing company called Dark Rooms.
So I'm very grateful for this, but most importantly,
this is the first time I've ever printed something,
and I was so pumped to see it in person.
And I'm curious, what do you guys think?
Should I do more prints?
Would you guys ever be interested in prints?
Let me know.
I'm curious of your thoughts.
Moving on to the item right below it.
This 1929 World War Two machine gun camera.
I just wanted a piece, number one,
that would look really great on this credenza here,
but number two, that would just be like a statement piece,
that when people come in they're like, what, what is that?
This always starts a conversation,
because people think it's a gun.
It's not.
This is a camera.
If you guys want to learn more about it,
you can click this video here.
It has a very fascinating history.
But I love this thing, it's a great statement piece.
Now, moving on to the credenza.
This is a walnut credenza that I got from Structube.
I mainly purchased it for storage,
and we actually put a lot of our important items
in clear boxes, because in production,
the number one thing is organization,
because it always takes one tiny little item,
and if you can't find it, the whole production slows down.
So that's why we put them
in clear plastic organizational bins,
so that we can find the thing.
Where's the drone?
It's right here.
Well, the drone is an easy one to pinpoint,
but you know, clear boxes, highly recommend.
All right, so going over here,
I have a fake plant from Artiplanto.
I would love to have real plants, like I really would,
but normally when Rona is not a thing,
we like to travel a lot.
So we kill a lot of plants,
but also we have pets in the house,
and cats and plants are not a good combo to have.
So we have fake plants,
and this is the best quality fake plant that I could find.
Over here, is a lamp that I got from Structube,
but most importantly,
actually put an Aperture B7c light bulb in it,
which is a color temperature controlled, and RGB light,
but also, it runs on a lithium battery,
so I don't always have to have it plugged in.
So right now I can have this
as a nice practical light in the background,
and these are two great items,
here, I won't try to make too much sound.
These are two great items to put in the background
of any type of shot.
So it's good to always have these on the side,
so you can place them, and make your shots more interesting.
All right, so moving on to my favorite part of this office,
which is this concrete accent wall,
and walnut standing desk.
I spent a lot of time looking at this wall.
Now, one of my big goals was to have an accent wall
that I could use for photography, as well as a backdrop,
and I kept thinking, well, am I going to paint it?
Like, what's going to go on there?
And then I was chatting with my friend Ross,
and he was like, you should put concrete on there.
There's this company called Deco that does like,
half inch concrete slabs, that glue directly onto your wall.
And I was like, yeah, that looks, that looks really good.
So I went with that.
It was not cheap, but in my opinion,
is worth every single penny.
It really brought the room together,
as well as just looks good in person, and on camera.
I am so happy with this.
Now this is the desk that I primarily work at.
This is the Jarvis Hardwood Standing Desk from Fully.
The reason why I love this is, because it's on casters.
Which is the fancy way of saying it's on wheels.
Which means that we can maximize the use of this space.
Essentially we can move it around,
and get different backdrops for different shots.
Also, as you can see,
I opted for walnut once again, but this tabletop,
because it's hardwood, is so beautiful for top-down shots.
So we use it a lot when we're doing like,
tech reviews, and anything else that requires
a top down aerial bird's eye view,
looking down at this beautiful walnut.
Now I opted to get power installed on this desk,
so there's these little grommets over here,
that have AC power, USB, and USB-C power.
Which is essential when you work in tech,
as well as filmmaking, because you always
need to charge little things all the time,
and being able to access this very quickly is so crucial.
All right, so let's talk about my space chair here.
Oooooh.
This is the Capisco chair by HAG.
I've had this chair for two years.
I absolutely love it, because I am a super restless person,
and don't like to just sit in the chair
the way it's supposed to be designed.
And this chair, you can sit in it in so many different ways.
You can sit in like this, or when we're like brainstorming,
this is the brainstorming position.
Ah, yes.
Excellent idea, Lucas, great one.
We should make that video.
Or you can sit in it,
like how you're supposed to sit in a chair,
like this, which is nice,
because it actually opens your hip flexors,
and releases tension to your lower back.
So that you can have less lower back pain.
I should probably sit in it more, like this.
I never do.
You'll usually catch me like this.
Does anyone else sit like this when they work?
I am the worst, but I'm glad that my chair
can adapt to my working style.
Which is an egg worker.
When I'm not standing in this,
sort of standing, in this chair,
Ha!
Keep that outtake in.
All right, I would say I sit about 75% of the time,
and the other 25% of the time I actually like to stand,
so I put the desk here, into standing mode.
There's little presets.
So number two is standing.
One is sitting, and three can be
for when Lucas wants to use this.
And other people who want to use this desk.
But I can't just stand.
I can't, I can't do it.
I have this like, skateboard balance board,
that I must use,
so I can activate my core,
and be moving all the time.
I'm just one of those people that needs to be moving.
I'm antsy all the time.
So this is nice.
I get my calories in, as well as it makes work more fun.
But the one beef I have with it, is it's not walnut.
So I keep it in the closet a lot of the times.
But I really like this thing.
This balance board is super fun.
And over here, my last favorite thing about this desk,
a beer bottle opener, right here,
for when you get client revisions,
and there's more than you thought.
The computer that I'm primarily using right now,
is the 24 inch M1 iMac.
And the reason why I love this,
is because number one, it's small, lightweight,
we can move it, because this table
is always being used for different shots.
So we pull it off all the time.
It also looks really good when
the back is exposed on this table,
so you don't really see all the cables hanging everywhere,
which is really key,
because I'm so concerned about aesthetics.
It also has a 4.5 K Retina Display,
which is a really nice experience
when you're editing in Lightroom and in Photoshop,
and for my skillset, and my needs,
in terms of my day-to-day with YouTube,
as I'm script writing,
editing photos all the time for Instagram,
and for client needs, as well as doing social edits,
like Reels and TikToks, and things like that.
This computer is absolutely perfect for that.
And it doesn't really take up that big of a footprint.
All right, so I will call out the fact
that I am not using the keyboard and mouse
that comes with the iMac.
I'm using the black one here,
but the main reason is because I like the numeric key.
I also got this really nice walnut keyboard tray
from Grovemade that I like a lot,
and because it has walnut, I made sure to keep using it.
Also, I went with the walnut and leather mouse, mouse,
this is not a mouse pad.
This is a hand rest.
This is for my wristies,
so I don't get carpal tunnel syndrome.
And then I also have the black mouse, which,
come on apple, fix the charging port, do it please.
And this beautiful little leather mouse pad here,
which can store a pen, which is nice.
Additionally, I have this spot
over here that holds the MagSafe charging unit,
which plugs right into the USB-C of the grommet on the desk,
and I can just plug that in right there,
and I can get notified all the time
when Bitcoin is dropping.
All right, so moving on to my
all-in-one YouTube studio setup.
Yeah, this is everything I need to film a video.
You got your stand, you got your monitor,
you got your spot for your camera,
and you got your audio, and you got your light.
Do you guys want to check out this full build-out?
I will link it up here,
but this is a very popular trend on YouTube.
And I had to do it myself.
The most important thing in a studio,
is having control over your light.
So we actually have blackout curtains.
We got the Ikea curtains, because they're cheap,
because we have this little devil down here,
that has created all these wonderful little cuts here,
and we've only had these for like two months,
three months now, and they are destroyed.
So you'll notice that I actually have six guitars here.
Do I need all of them?
Absolutely not.
But if you play guitar,
you totally understand why I have six of them.
Also, mainly because before pursuing a career as a YouTuber,
I actually used to be a singer songwriter,
and play in lots of different bands.
So this is my collection of different instruments
from my previous career.
But also they are out,
because I kind of gave up on my dreams
of being a musician and singer songwriter for a while.
So I just kind of like kept all my guitars and items
away and in boxes.
The fact that these are all out,
are a reminder to start playing again.
So I'm starting to get my passion
for music back because they are out,
and because of this office space.
Now moving on to this, this is my guitar amp,
my practice amp for when I am playing electric guitar,
but the coolest thing about this is
that it actually connects to an iPad.
So instead of having a bunch of pedals,
I can actually customize the sound of my guitar,
or my base, but it also has Bluetooth,
so I can play along to songs,
play a lot of like, Taking Back Sunday,
and pop punk songs all the time.
But also it's just a great speaker,
if you want to play like lo-fi beats in the office
while everybody's working.
So this is a really great asset,
and it isn't that expensive.
Moving on.
We have walnut once again, walnut and concrete.
Ooh, what a vibe.
Found this on Etsy.
I just thought it was really beautiful,
and it filled the space perfectly to hold this guitar amp.
Below that, I have a walnut watch holder
from Holme and Hadfield.
This is to display my small watch collection here,
but also my little bit of jewelry that I have.
When I say a little bit, I have a single necklace.
All right, so welcome to the second desk,
as well as the second backdrop.
So starting at the top here,
this is geometric wood art that I found on Etsy.
It's the most Etsy thing that you can find on Etsy.
And I liked it, so I bought them.
They were not cheap, but I will link two options below.
The one I bought, and then the cheaper one from the Ukraine,
which looks very similar.
Those are in the description.
Moving on to the desk.
Now I actually got this desk off of Facebook Marketplace
for like a quarter of the price.
Now this is a hot topic around here.
When I first bought this desk, everyone was like, eeew.
And some people were like, woo, I love it.
I love it, but Lucas, who's filming this video right now,
does not like it.
He actually used the word,
I hate that desk.
Let's start a little comment section thread here.
Do you like the desk here?
Here, let me perfect it.
Do you like the desk?
Yay or nay?
Stop it, Lucas.
Put your hate hand away.
All right, so let's move to the different items
that are actually on this desk.
Starting with the 38 inch monitor here.
This is a monitor from ViewSonic, it is the VP3881.
Do you guys want to go check it out?
I'll link that whole video up here,
but it's just got a lot of space.
It's color accurate.
It's great for photo and video editing.
Lucas loves it, and uses it all the time,
and it distracts him from the desk.
You might've noticed that I have speakers over here.
These are eight inch MR8 Mackie speakers.
I actually bought these when I was 19 years old,
and pursuing a career as a recording engineer.
So these were actually at my parents' house
for a really long time, when I had a studio in the basement
of my parents' house, but I brought these back out
so I could actually start recording some music again.
Because that's what I used to do for a really long time,
and now I don't do it almost at all.
The other items that are on the desk,
I have this really, really, cool clock here
that I got from the Ukraine.
I didn't go to the Ukraine,
but I've found it on a Ukrainian website.
It is a tube clock, and I also just really love
that the way the time changes on it.
I have a walnut and leather headphone rest
here from Grovemade, as well as a little pen stand,
which is really nice when you have to sign different things.
I don't really sign a lot of things anymore,
but it's nice to have it.
And that is essentially the backdrop here.
Moving on to the most comfortable chair I've ever sat in.
This is the Regeneration Chair from Knoll,
which you can get on the Fully site.
I've tried a lot of different office chairs.
I also suffer a lot from back pain,
because I don't do enough stretching, even though I should,
and this chair is by far, the most comfortable.
I'm not just saying that.
Like legitimately, this is my favorite chair to sit in.
The carpet, as you can see, fits the theme of this office,
which is geometric and lots of different lines,
as well as white.
This is also the first like,
brighter colored carpet that I have.
It gets dirty so quickly,
but it definitely suits the vibe of this office.
I just need to stay on top of cleaning it.
But this was really cheap.
I got it from Overstock.
All right, gear heads, get ready,
because this is going to be so up your alley.
Welcome to the gear cage.
Ooh, I'll give you a second right now.
Aaaah.
Charging wall, and other things.
Let me give you a quick tour of it.
This is a Husky shelf that I got from Home Depot.
Starting on the bottom,
this is where all the hard shell cases live.
So this is lights, drones,
anything else that needs to live in a hard shell case.
Right up here is the bane of my existence.
Printers.
All printers I hate.
If you have a nice experience with a printer,
I don't believe you one bit.
Also right here, is where our entire
YouTube channel lives on.
This is a Synology NAS set up.
If you guys want to learn more about it, it is up here.
We absolutely love it.
It's a network storage.
Network attached storage.
That's the word, network attached storage.
Right above it is our charging area here.
So we can charge V Mount batteries,
and P batteries, batteries for every,
every battery you can think of, it charges up here.
I am going to call it, the fact that, yes, I agree,
this is not the best spot for lenses,
but it is the spot that made sense at the time.
We installed a little LED flex light here,
so we can just turn that on and off.
It gives you lots of light.
So if you actually want to shoot a top-down here,
it looks really good when you're doing a camera build-out,
or anything like that.
And right on top, is where we keep all our camera bags,
as well as sound blankets,
because the only beef that I have with this office,
is that it's actually quite reverby.
So we have to put sound blankets on the ground,
or put them on C stands beside us.
That is the only beef I have with it.
Because I saw the hardwood, and I wanted the hardwood,
and I have to live with the fact that this room
is a little bit more reverby.
But it looks nice, and that's what matters.
I think we finally nailed it.
This is the office that I've always wanted,
and always wanted to work out of.
Truthfully, ever since we moved in here,
I've felt more creative.
This room supports us.
It's versatile.
It has everything that we can possibly need to make videos,
but ultimately it's designed to be able to
make us more creative,
and I've noticed that by having this space.
So hopefully this gave you some ideas
for the spaces that you guys are trying to build out.
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Just saying, I'm just saying.
I love you guys.
I will see you whenever I want to make another video,
which will probably be next week.
Love you guys, bye.