Behind the Scenes: The Making of X2o Studio
Behind the Scenes! The Making of X2o Studio
I’ve been wanting to do this post forever but didn’t know the best medium for it! Now that we’ve decided to add the blog as part of X2o Studio, I think this is the perfect platform. Get ready for lots of great photos documenting our process. A question I get asked all the time, is “Is X2o a franchise? Did you have a blueprint to work from?” The answer is No. The x2o concept was completely imagined by my husband and me. We’ve been on this journey for almost two years and we are so excited by the (almost) finished product. Following is a timeline of how we put the studio together from start to finish!
The Space
Finding our beautiful space in Los Gatos, California took around a year. We created the business plan for the studio in early 2018 during a trip to Los Angeles. I’ve always been totally inspired by the fitness / pilates scene down there and originally we were looking at spots in the Orange County area! Ultimately though we decided to stay in our home, the Bay Area, and stumbled upon our space in Los Gatos in late 2019. We had looked at soooo many spaces by the time we viewed ours but we knew it was perfect right away! We immediately began the application and lease process (a story for another time!)
Designing the Aesthetic
We wanted to create a vibe that was clean and modern with a touch of elegance. I knew for sure that I wanted a large neon sign saying something motivational (but not cheesy!). My neon was custom made by Brite Lite Tribe. The gray cement looking wall is actually wallpaper! I had an amazing local lady come and do the entire wall (it’s 12ft high by 30ft long!) by herself. She also wallpapered our bathroom with this amazing palm leaf print paper from Milton and King. Some other touches I added were a faux living wall to go behind our front desk and a retail rack made of industrial looking piping to go along with the cement wall. Our awesome light up desk was an Etsy find! It was so cool getting to work with a bunch of small independent companies on this project. We did our best to support local and small whenever possible.
The Interior
Sound is really important in a fitness studio. The system itself has to be easy for the instructor to use but also sophisticated enough to provide surround sound. Our control panel revolves around the KISS methodology (keep it stupid simple) it includes just two knobs, one to turn up voice, one to turn up music independently! We have a total of eight speakers spaced throughout the studio. Commercial Audio Visual Solutions out of South San Francisco installed our entire sound and security system, we highly recommend them, if you reach out ask for Don Lynch. To help dampen the sound and control echo, we installed acoustic paneling throughout the ceiling. The panels came from Acoustical Services.
Getting the mirrors was huge too! Really legitimized everything.
The Equipment!
Can’t have a fitness studio without some top notch equipment! I’ll go into why we selected water rowers on another post. We ordered ours in early February and they came about five weeks later. Usually the lead time is shorter but we got our logo put on the side and ours are powder coated black. My awesome father in law put most of them together but anyone wanting to purchase one for home, the set up is pretty easy. XFormers took a bit longer to arrive as they were a complete custom build and also we had to deal with Covid delays. But they were so worth the wait! Truly a beautiful machine.
So that’s pretty much what we’ve done so far! At least on the outside :) We know a great work out is not dependent on a beautiful space, but we hope when you come to X2o you feel inspired! Click here to schedule a class with us.
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