How We Clean a Bourke Road Photographic Studio in Alexandria 2015
This page sets out how we scope and run cleaning for a two-stage content studio in a sawtooth warehouse conversion on Bourke Road, Alexandria NSW 2015. It is written around the failure mode that costs these studios real money: dust nobody sees until the images come back from the retoucher. What follows is our method and our standard scope, not a named client story.
The site
A large stage with a white infinity cove, a smaller product stage, edit suites lined with acoustic fabric panel, a prop and set store, a client lounge, a shared kitchen used for catering, a makeup station and bathrooms. Original timber floors through the office end, sealed concrete on the stages, exposed steel trusses and sawtooth glazing overhead, and a roller door onto the street for vehicle work. Several bookings a week, typically apparel and homewares catalogue plus occasional food.
The problem with a generic contract
The arrangement we are usually asked to replace is a generic commercial contract: one visit a week, a fixed morning, a vacuum and a mop. Two failures compound from there.
- Dust settles on product between styling and capture. Sawtooth glazing and steel trusses are never cleaned, the cove floor is dry-swept, which puts fibre straight back into the air, and aerosol furniture polish used in the lounge carries through the roller-door draught.
- Cleaning has no relationship to the booking calendar. A Friday client arrives to a kitchen still holding Wednesday catering, a green room with used towels, and a bathroom that has been through two crews since the last visit.
Both are expensive in ways that never appear on the cleaning invoice: retouching hours on the first, and client confidence on the second.
What we set up
- A low-dust method: HEPA-filtered vacuums throughout, no dry sweeping anywhere on site, no aerosols of any kind, and top-down sequencing so the cove floor is always the last surface touched
- A quarterly high-level program for trusses, sawtooth glazing reveals, pendant fittings and top ledges, with a dated photo set after each pass
- Written handling protocol agreed for the cove, matte black walls, acoustic panels and floor cabling — what gets dusted dry, what gets touched at all, and what gets reported instead of cleaned
- A base program timed to the booking calendar rather than to a fixed day
- Turnaround cleans between bookings — a short reset of kitchen, green room, makeup station, bathrooms and stage floor, booked off the studio schedule
- Set-build days scoped separately as project cleans, because MDF dust and paint splatter are not a nightly-visit problem
Why it is built this way
Every element targets one of the two failures. HEPA filtration, no dry sweeping and no aerosols address what is airborne when the camera is running; the quarterly high-level pass addresses what is waiting overhead to come down. Tying resets to the booking calendar is what stops a client meeting the last shoot. A scope like this prices above a generic commercial contract, and we say so — the comparison worth making is against retouching hours, not against the previous invoice. Terms are month-to-month.
Related reading
The full method is described on our creative studio cleaning in Alexandria page. The office end of a studio tenancy runs on our Alexandria office cleaning program, and our other Alexandria write-up covers O Riordan Street warehouses. Pricing context is on the Alexandria cost guide and terms on the FAQ.
Studio cleaning — FAQs
What kind of facility is this written for?
Commercial photographic and content studios in converted sawtooth warehouses on Bourke Road, Alexandria 2015 — an infinity cove stage, a smaller product stage, edit suites, a prop store, a client lounge, a shared catering kitchen and bathrooms, running several client bookings a week.
What usually goes wrong in these studios?
Two things. Airborne dust lands on product between the shot being set and the shot being taken, which costs retouching hours on every catalogue job. And the studio is cleaned on a fixed weekly slot with no relationship to the booking calendar, so clients walk into a kitchen and green room left from the previous shoot.
What does the program change?
The base clean runs a low-dust method — HEPA-filtered vacuuming, no dry sweeping, no aerosol product, top-down sequencing with the cove floor last. Turnaround cleans sit between bookings, triggered by the studio calendar rather than a fixed day. And a written handling protocol is agreed for the cove, matte walls, acoustic panels and cabling so nothing is cleaned in a way that damages it.
How is it priced?
Inside our Alexandria studio band, as a fixed monthly figure, with set-build project cleans quoted separately. A low-dust studio scope prices above a generic commercial contract because it carries more visits, more equipment and a written handling protocol — we set both out side by side before you decide.
What does the studio end up with?
A written handling protocol naming what is dusted, what is not touched and what is reported instead of cleaned; a quarterly high-level pass with a dated photo set; and turnaround resets tied to the booking calendar. Terms are month-to-month with 30 days notice.
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