BUILDING A KITCHEN STUDIO FOR FILMING YOUTUBE VIDEOS

We felt in love with a 1940’s Colonial house in Riverside, IL. About 20 minutes away from the Chicago loop. We were looking for a house for about a whole year. We knew we wanted to live in this suburb but couldn’t afford a big house here and what we could afford was too small with no much space for keeping up with the video filming for our YouTube Channel, Las Recetas de Laura – Delicioso, Authentic Mexican Food.

When I saw this house in the Redfin App I knew right away that the price for the square feet was really good. I called my realtor at 10 pm on a Saturday and told him I needed to see this house the next day.

We did, we came on Sunday and as soon as we put the first foot inside we knew this was home. It was funny, really, Jorge and I looked at each other without even looking at the other rooms and we said this is it. It was more like an energy thing. On Monday our offer was on the table.

BUYING A HOUSE THINKING ABOUT A KITCHEN STUDIO

I only asked for two things in the home of my dreams: a big kitchen where I could film my recipes and a garage attached to the house. I will never get over the idea of having the garage at the end of the yard with Chicago’s cold winters! Seriously. This is irrational, most homes have an unattached garage and you have to walk in the cold winter with snow all the way up to your knees to get home! It does not make sense! Guess what! The garage was at the end of a very large backyard and the kitchen was… well it was very old and small! Let’s call it a vintage kitchen. It actually was a built in all-wood kitchen from the 1940’s. It was the original kitchen from when the house was built. 

What we saw in the house is that we had the chance to tear down a wall to expand the kitchen and have space to fil from the front in what was the dining room.

It took us over 3 years to renew the kitchen. We teared down the wall that was between the dining room and the kitchen and then decided to tear down the other wall that was from the dinning to the living room. We got our open concept home! And achieved the perfect space to film our YouTube videos from our now kitchen studio.

OPEN CONCEPT HOME. GREAT IDEA FOR FILMING COOKING VIDEOS!

I can tell you that having an open concept home having two little kids makes my life so much more functional. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen and now I can be watching the kids while they play in the living room, they watch tv or they can just hang out in the kitchen stools while I cook. I can even go live while cooking them dinner.

OPEN CONCEPT KITCHEN FOR MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL

It really has been a game changer having the open concept. One of the great advantages is that now I can film my recipes at any time or make my live videos. I just set up a tripod in front of me and I started filming. When I have all the team, the cameraman, and all the production team, it is also much easier. We just move the dining room table a bit and we have all that space to film our videos. 

SPECIAL LIGHTENING FOR YOUTUBE KITCHEN

My husband worked at Univision for a long time as a radio and tv producer. We are good friends with people who knows about production. One of our friends came over and checked out the place and gave us some good ideas for setting up the lighting for the kitchen. We also added some plugs on the roof in case we needed to add some extra light that could stay fixed in the roof without having to be taking it off every time we filmed. All the lights are divided in different lines so we can decide which light we want or need on when we film.

THE BIG VENT CHALLENGE! DOWNDRAFTS VERSUS KITCHEN RANGE HOODS

The hardest part of the new kitchen was getting the right vent. I wanted the stove to be on the kitchen island and I could not have a kitchen Range hood because it would be between me and the camera! And you can not put a kitchen hood too high or it won’t work. I decided I will buy a Jenn Air Range that had the vent in the middle of the range! When I went to see the range I did not like it. It was not really functional. I could see food fallin in there and it took too much space from the range. Worst part because of the situation we are living in there were no ranges available until the next 6 months!! 

What a mess! The kitchen was half way and I could not wait for 6 months so the search started! After looking for days for options, finally someone advised me about the downdrafts that are becoming very popular because of people wanting to have their cooktops in the kitchen islands without having some hood in the middle of the view.

After buying 3 different kinds of downdrafts we finally decided for the Wolf downdraft with the 850 motor. There were other brands that were more affordable and they also looked and performed very well but we needed a small motor that could fit in the inside of the roof. I’ll tell you more about downdrafts and kitchen range hoods here. 

CHOOSING CABINETS FOR A NEW KITCHEN

First of all if you are planning a kitchen studio for filming cooking videos you need to make sure that the materials you choose do not reflect the filming light or it will be a nightmare! It was important that everything was a matte color. I decided to choose white because I feel it is classy and won’t look old too soon. Regarding the design I did not have too much space as I have a door in the middle that goes to the outside. I regretted later not canceling that door. But well. I painted it in the same color of the kitchen cabinets and hung a wreath on it and it looks gorgeous. I choose a wood cabinet in the front and on the back is a cheaper material. It was way too expensive to have it all in wood. The color of the cabinets is white in a matte and I decided not to have too much design on the doors because that translates into cleaning more!! The more simple the easiest to clean.

RANGE OR COOKTOP

Cooktops are so popular these days! And I love how they look! If I had had the space I had probably chosen a cooktop but I had nowhere else to set the oven! It was more a space decision to have the range instead of the cooktop. One thing you definitely need to have in consideration is that if you have the oven in another place it can not be next to the refrigerator as the place will get warm and the fridge needs ventilations and it will make it harder for it to get cool. We decided to since more than a year ago to get rid of the microwave for the same trouble with space. We have survived well, I pretty much used the miro just for making pop corn. 

COUNTER TOP, HOW TO DECIDE WHICH MATERIAL?

I wrote a whole blog about it if you are looking for the perfect material for your kitchen countertop. My case is different. I was building a Kitchen Studio for filming videos for YouTube and social media so I had to decide based on no reflection! Yes, this has been the topic all along! I am a little traumatized of having so much trouble having the filming light reflecting around the kitchen that I knew that the appliance definitely couldn’t go in front of the camera. I decided for a matte quarts as it is more resistant than marmol and you have the option of finding it in matte so you won’t have shining shoots on your videos!

KITCHEN STUDIO AND HOME KITCHEN AT THE SAME TIME

The first thing you must think about is how to make the kitchen the most functional for your daily life as well as for your influencer life. We had the chance to build a kitchen studio in our garage and use it exclusively for the filming. On one side we could just leave all the cameras and light fixed in there which could make the filming easier but on the other side we would need to go back and forward to the home kitchen if we forgot something. We also decided not to do it because it is hard to get off the house with two small kids, plus the Chicago’s weather is not very gentle for coming back and forward all the time, even in your own yard. But give it a thought! It might work for you!

A great decision I made is to have some cabinets at the kitchen which are exclusively for the recipes. Is only a corner cabinet between the dishwasher and the sink. Then I place the small tripod for my lives, and some plates and props for the photos for the reels and tik tok videos that do not require so much lightning work.

So this is the final result of my kitchen-Studio. If you have any questions, please felt free to contact me in the comments below and tell me how you like it or what would you have done differently.

I hope you enjoy this tour and that the information can be useful! 

Best

Laura #CookDelicioso