The Darkroom Project

Like most amateur photographers I have always wanted a permanent darkroom. Not because of any sense of grandeur, just from the practicality of not having to set up and take down a temporary arrangement. These pictures show the construction and early configuration. The space is bound to be re-organized over time.

When my wife and I were house-hunting, the ideal would have been somewhere with an existing darkroom space and all our other requirements for size, location, price (!), and accessibility. We did manage to find somewhere with a convertable outbuilding that already had earthed electrical power. A water supply would not be a problem, but drainage would be neither simple nor inexpensive. After a good number of years using temporary arrangements, this is more of an inconvenience than an obstacle. I work in monochrome, and primarily need the darkroom for printing. Film can be loaded in a changing bag and processed in any location with water and drainage.

The space we had to work with had a concrete floor and conventional wood and felt-lined walls. Experience over winter had shown that it was weathertight. A number of previous fittings were removed before the construction phase. We needed to retain some general storage space. This, along with the contraints of blackout needs, led to the internal partition wall. This separated the storage at one end of the building from the darkroom itself, and provided a double door design.

The project took most of the summer of 2001, mostly on available weekends and evenings. My brother-in-law, Frank, helped out with the two-person construction jobs. That the project progressed so well is largely due to his experience.

The general room design was dictated partly by the physical space and by the standard wet/dry division. The space is approximately 9 feet by 8 feet (2.75m by 2.45m) with wet and dry benches on the shorter walls and the door in the centre of one of the longer walls. This wall is a constructed partition, which allowed the use of a pocket door (from a local salvage yard). This helped considerably in both saving space and providing light baffling.

The light switch was removed from the outer wall and subsequently mounted on the new partition wall. This switch controls the light in the outer storage area, the darkroom fan, and the main white light which is pull-switched. All other electrical devices are run from a permanently powered outlet source. This arrangement ensures that the fan is on when the space is occupied, and the storage area outside the darkroom is lit for safety.

The building was originally timber with an unfinished inside. The inner walls were lined with fibreglass insulation and paneled with half-inch (12mm) plywood. Plywood was chosen over plasterboard / sheetrock for it's better water resistance and because it allows shelves and equipment to be attached to the wall without hunting for a stud. We did take the precaution of marking the stud locations at floor and ceiling where the dry bench was to be fixed.

The wet bench is a stainless steel and galvanised unit that came from a local salvage yard. It was probably custom made for a restaurant. It includes a wide shallow sink with drain. The sink has a convenient lip that takes a plastic mesh (This material is intended as a fluorescent light diffuser, and came from a home improvement store) that acts as a draining surface for trays. It also allows trays larger than the sink space to be used. Four 12 x 16 inch trays are the maximum for side-by-side use, but that's fine for my routine needs.

The sink drain is run to a holding container that is larger than the fresh water stock containers. The rest of the open under-sink space is used for tray and chemical storage. Spent fixer is stockpiled for later silver removal in order to meet local effluent regulations.

The post-construction picture shows the mesh in place. There is around a foot of clearance at the drain end to allow for the filling of containers from the stock water supply and for ease of tipping away used chemistry. The shelf on the wall provides basic storage for chemistry and graduates.

Prints are stock-piled in a dish of water before being transfered to another building for full washing in a Versalab tank. This tank is actually in the laundry and utility space of the house. The faucet was adapted to take a snap-fit garden hose connector which in turn mates to the standard Versalab connector.

I may move the washer to the darkroom in future. A cold water supply would be easy to provide by plumbing a connector for a hose through the wall. The washer waste could go to the garden as the contaminants are low. The drawback to this is that drying space would still be in the house.

The dry bench (another salvage yard item) is a 3 foot by 7 foot (0.9m by 2.13m) surface mounted to the wall and on diagonal braces. The bench top has steel reinforcement underneath. The final underbench arrangement has not been determined. Rolling plastic carts with drawers will be used for some items. A multi-outlet earthed power strip runs along the back of the dry bench. This connects to the primary outlet. The primary outlet was replaced with a Ground Fault Circuit Isolator (or Residual Current Detector in the UK) to reduce any risks associated with electricity and water in the same space. The white light is controlled by a pull switch.

The white and grey box on the wall behind the enlarger is the irrigation control system for the garden. This was inherited from the original function of the building. There was no advantage in moving it.

The walls and ceiling were painted semi-gloss white. Once the final enlarger positioning has been decided, local anti-reflection painting will be done. The concrete floor was also painted to reduce the chance of dust generation. The opening window will be retained as an emergency exit, and the glass blacked out. This was done by inserting hardboard panels cut to fit and sealing with black silicone. This is removable should the glass need to be replaced.

The previously open roof space was closed with a plywood ceiling (about 7' 6" [2.28m]height) into which is set the extract fan. This is biased towards the wet side to collect more chemical evaporation. The fan vents under the eave at the end of the building via a pressure-opening vent cowl. The fan was slightly over-specified for the room volume, and is a low-noise model. It is a standard bathroom item from the local home improvement store. The internal partition wall was painted black internally in case an air inlet was required. However it seems the re-entrant slots for the pocket door provide ample air ingress at present. An inlet remains an option. The ceiling was insulated to reduce the effect of winter cold and summer heat. I still need heating in winter, and cooling in summer.

Wood coving trim was used to help seal the angles between the walls and ceiling, and between the walls themselves. Broad trim was used to seal around the windows, which was considerably simpler than cutting the wall panels for a close fit.

Originally I had planned to use two enlargers - my old Durst F-30 from the 1970's and the Durst M605 I obtained in 1982. However the loan of a Beseler 45M 5x4 with cold light head may require a re-think. The F-30 may be best used without the enlarger head as a basic copy stand. The Beseler will allow me to play with negatives greater than 6x6cm (typically 6x9 cm and 5x4 inch). The drawback will be that the cold head will not treat my usual Multigrade paper very kindly. At one point I was not sure that it would fit between the bench and the ceiling. Moral: be careful about what you assume during the planning stage!