If you read a lot of books on how to build a home darkroom, a lot of time and energy are dedicated to construction of the darkroom. For those of us who have to turn a closet, laundry room or bathroom into a darkroom, or if we rent, we really don't have a lot of options for permanent change, and often have to have an easily reversible space. To date I have built several darkrooms in bathrooms, a few in laundry rooms, and my current darkroom is a spare bedroom, which is both a darkroom, small studio space and my office. Aside from the struggle of not having running water in my space, and I have to run to the bathtub for a rinse, the only other battle is making my darkroom light tight.

For a black and white darkroom (and you won't read this in a book), some light leaks can be okay to live with. In your enlarger and tray areas, you will want to make sure that there are no leaks, but cracks under doors on the opposite side of the room, or indirect leaks that can't be seen from your working area can be livable as well. The best test of course is to leave a piece of unexposed paper in your developer for up to 10 minutes and check if it is fogged. As silly as it is, I generally stand in my darkroom and think like a piece of photo paper, and I ask my photo paper self, "Would I be fogged here?"

For a temporary, or weekend darkroom, a bathroom with one window and one door, I cut a dark green felt blanket to a size larger than the door and the window, I then adhered a layer of black plastic to one side. I weighted the bottom of this with small pieces of wood for the door panel, so that it would hang straight. I added small hooks to the top of the door jamb and window trim, and cut holes at the top of the panels to match the hooks. When I wanted to work I would simply hop on a chair hang up my panels and then get printing. If I was working in mid day with a lot of light coming into the house, I would supplement my panels with some gaffers tape around the edges. Generally, I would work in the evening or night to eliminate a lot of problems.

For a more permanent darkroom, I located large pieces of cardboard and cut them to fit into my windows, I then added a layer of black plastic and gaffers taped the plastic to the windowsill. For the door, I did nothing, because it was around a small nook, and doesn't throw any light around that corner if it is completely closed. If I need more protection, I would add a panel similar to the one above. The cardboard worked well, as I could cut holes and add ventilation louveres as I needed them. The only problem is opening and closing windows, but I'm in California so open windows behind cardboard isn't too bad. Removable cardboard or plywood pieces cut to the size of windows with some foam rubber edging, and some handles could be easily wedged into the window and pulled out again.

For film processing, I find that most of these light deterrents actually make the darkroom totally dark. If you find that you still have leaks that may fog film, a film changing bag is handy.

Right now, I have converted my darkroom to be able to handle color printing. I have had to hang another black plastic panel to split my room, because the little lights on my computer will often fog color paper, even from a distance, but with a panel in the way, even just to block my immediate working area has worked just fine.

Supplies:

Black Plastic
Gaffers Tape
Permacel Light Tight Paper Tape
Film Changing Bag
Corrugated Board