It’s a room!

If not yet dark.

Visible progress is slow but I feel I’ve reached a milestone with this: the new wall and door are in and the room is sealed up and insulated. It’s amazing how much better the air conditioner works! At the other end of the room, the window needs to be covered up, but that shouldn’t take long.

Finishing the tape and float on the sheetrock and painting is the next major phase. This takes a certain amount of time no matter hard one works at it because things have to dry. I’m going to go with your basic white on the paint color. There is much debate on various boards about what color to paint a darkroom, but it really comes down to what an individual wants. There is a school of thought about black walls, especially around the enlarger. I intend to address this later, but the room will be painted white.

After paint: overhead lighting and plumbing.  Then I begin to install actual fixtures and equipment. The 8 foot sink is already in the room, since I had to get it inside before I framed and installed the door. Otherwise, it would have never turned the corner at the top of the stairs.

I also had a 9 foot countertop from the old darkroom. Nothing special about it except I had it and it was drilled and tapped for mounting an Omega 4x5 enlarger. It is not an actual “countertop”, but a heavy exterior door that I rescued from a trip to a landfill. Veneer over one and a half inch thick particle board! Weighs a ton. Flat. Stable. I also wrestled this thing up the stairs prior to framing and installing the door. I got all the way to the top landing and was negotiating the turn to take it into the darkroom when it slipped out of my grip and fell flat back onto the stairs. It hit nothing and damaged nothing in the seemingly slow-motion fall, but broke into two almost equal pieces when it hit. The two pieces were much easier to take back down then the intact thing was to haul up!