Riverhouse Sounds Build

Well, it takes a while, doesn't it? I started sometime in August with demo and have just made that wonderful turn around from demolition to construction. This studio is probably similar to a lot of others. I have basement space available in a 3000 sq ft house and plan to not only use if for my own creations, but offer it commercially as a studio/B&B with a wonderful environment - parks, fishing, 'family' feel - really inspiring stuff for my target customer base. One of my efforts during construction will be to keep costs reasonable through recycling of materials and using community support salvage depots like Habitat for Humanity's ReStore for materials. These are wonderful places where you can save a buck and help those in need. I have a couple of tips for those new to the game like me: - you will need a lot of space for demolition stuff going out and for materials coming in. Plan carefully your construction phases - be careful not to put stuff where you're about to be working. I try to handle materials as few times as possible. - keep your work area clean. You've heard this a million times, but if you twist an ankle, you'll delay your studio build by weeks. Also keeping similar items grouped together (eg hvac stuff) will often prevent you from re-buying items you already have. - shop around and barter. In this economy there are a ton of deals to be had by _just asking_ ! - be prepared to go slow. This is a labour of love and detail. If you rush or cut corners, you will become frustrated. Enjoy the journey. Cheers, Shaun

Here are some shots of the interior 'before'. Do you like green? Do you like shag?

More shots of the lucious green shag (3/4"). Note in one shot the vibration sensors in the windows. The house was formerly owned by a psychiatrist who counsled violent offenders...I guess he was worried about one of them making an unscheduled return...at night...when it's dark...

Another shot showing off the lovely green (what else) curtains..

....and of course the obligatory artsy shot of tools & such. Next time, I will actually focus the camera :} PS> the garage door and shutters were also painted green...as was any other paintable surface in the house!

On to demo shots...here you can see that the suspended ceiling has been removed and the joists cleaned up a bit. That bulkhead with HVAC proved to be a real effort to remove and a pain to find a solution for. But that's for a later chapter.. That flourescent light slipped off it's rail, crashed to the ground, and sent sparks flying. Luckily the dog had _just_ walked away..

Here you can see the drywall coming down in strips. I used a sawzall (buy one, you'll need it) to cut it off in 14" strips which I then used inbetween the joists. Because sound isolation is not a huge concern, I re-purposed the existing 3.5" insulation batts between the joists.

Here's a good shot showing the HVAC bulkhead removed and my patented poly-with-a-2x4-stapled-to-the-bottom door. This house, being built in the '70s was constructed with 2x6s (for the most part) and heavy guage ducts.

The middle wall coming down...they constructed this wall on the floor. Unfortunately, the joists do have a slight slope that wedged this wall tightly against the floor on one end, and goose-loose on the other.

Shot of the carpet coming up. It was glued to the concrete slab, so I cut it into strips, peeled them up and then bought a scraper to remove all the foam that was left behind. See that brown 14-2 feeding the receptacle? It was live. It was also live when I cut it....another reason to clearly mark your panel's breakers. Anyone want to buy a scraper? :)

My final shot for today. This is looking down the end of a return plenum. Next time you have your ducts cleaned, I would focus on the cold air returns..the supplies were squeaky clean.

I really hate insulation. Whenever I handle this stuff I use gloves and a mask and whenever it is being stored, it's covered to avoid getting fibres airborne. When I removed all the insulation, there were mouse droppings and nests all through it. I cleaned up/removed any of that pollution before reusing it.

The wall adjacent the staircase was/is a mess. I plan to decouple as best possible for now, add a bunch of mass seal it up and generally do all the right things. I hope to add a landing 1/2 way down and then turn it 90 deg in the future.

I started off (other than working on design) sealing off the end of the joists with 3" foam insulation and stopping any gaps with expanding foam.

Meet my helper. When I started putting the drywall strips from the walls into the spaces between the joists, I needed a T-bar to help support the far end. The drywall from the walls filled about 2/3 of the joists, so I had to buy about 10 additional sheets to finish things off ($8.99/sheet - 1/2" - 8' long). I ended up cutting these new sheets width-wise in the garage with my sawzall 4 sheets at a time. I'll never do that again as the precision wasn't very good the last few sheets I did with my drywall T-square and the fit was much better. Overall, 3 sheets were added; backer rod filled some gaps, sealer was added only to the last layer and then 1x2 strapping was added for add'l support. Instead of suppporting with #4d nails as suggested in Rod's book, I used 3 sizes of drywall screws to attach the sheets to the subfloor above.

Quick observation/question for you. It looks like you're putting the expansion foam around the drywall pieces as well. Rod's recommendation is to use backer rod and caulk for flexibility. What's your reasoning behind the path you're following?

Hey Snowdog. I used backer rod where it made sense..up to about 3/4". For those gaps that were large-ish or oddly shaped, I chose to use the foam to ensure an airtight seal. cheers, Shaun

I just finished a second pass at a silencer sketch and thought I would share it. This is not complete, I still need to round out the dims to nominal sizes and make sure that waste is minimized. One thing I'm not showing on the design below is the 2" rigid insulation layer as I'm still figuring out how to wrap it. The cut edges of the acoustic tile will be 'sealed' with a heavy mixture of white glue and water. It would be great if there was a library of studio design specific Sketchup models etc somewhere on this site, or on the Google Earth site. If anyone wants a copy of whatever I post, just PM me. Regards, Shaun