New Home Studio / Long Beach, CA

Hi there all, I just joined the site today. I purchased the home next door to mine last week with plans to turn the living room into a studio. I have never done this and know NOTHING about it. Any local Southern California people (or others) that might be able to offer some suggestions? The room is approx. 25' X 15'. The weird thing is that one side of it opens to a sunken in pit/wet bar area, and the ceilings go from about 8' at one end to about 26' at the other. Is this room a good candidate for a nice home studio? I plan on mainly recording a vocalist or two and doing all the music via my samplers/software/keyboards. I use a MAC with Logic. I would like to have a good room in which to mix in as well. Seems all my current efforts in mixing sounds great when I mix them, but sound lousy most other places. Am I asking too much? I would like to try to keep costs under $25K. Looking forward to hearing from you guys... Thanks, Frank