Basement layout

We've been planning to move and looking for a place with a likely studio space. But on getting some assessments we're realizing that our current house is a great investment; it's a 1912 craftsman with all kinds of built ins - benches, bookcases, etc. and is in a great neighborhood close to a great park and a short drive to where we work. So we're thinking maybe to stay here and put money into this one instead of moving. But first I need to see what kind of setup I could have in our basement; having a quiet upstairs and no complaining neighbors while my loud rock band plays down there is essential. The ceiling is about 100" with 7 1/2" slats and one beam that's 8" high. The outside walls are concrete (?) blocks and cement. I'll post pictures of them soon but they seem like they'll be pretty good for sound isolation. The concrete floor is pretty uneven as well. The basement is about half underground. The door on the right side goes to a landing and then either straight up or down to the left. What I'm looking for is a control room and live room with one iso booth. The live room should not be too small; it will be the site of band practices and I want it to be comfortable. Ideally the band would be in the lower half of the house; that's under the pantry/kitchen instead of the living room and is also at the back of the house. It would be nice if I could look straight in at the live room when at the mix position. I was thinking something like the corner control booth turned 90 degrees counter clockwise with Studio B being a family storage room (which needs to be planned for one way or another). The post in the middle will have to be worked around, though. The thought has also crossed my mind of adding a 1/2 bathroom to keep people from needing to go upstairs for any reason. The area right above the electrical panels is an upstairs bathroom (forgot to add the pipe to the left of the electrical panels). Oh, almost forgot. There are heating ducts that run up and down from the furnace (as you are looking at the diagram) and an intake (I believe) goes across left to right between 2 ceiling slats right below the post. I think they're about the same height as the beam over the post. We do also plan to get a new furnace before this project takes place. I'll post some pictures soon but in the meantime here's the layout (not exactly drawn to scale but pretty close). Thanks for your help!

Is that a wood or steel beam?

wood beam.

Jay - the problem is the HVAC Unit being in the middle of the area. To get a control room and a live room so you can look from one into the other just doesn't work. Here's my first take on it ;) cheers John

John Sayers wrote:

Jay - the problem is the HVAC Unit being in the middle of the area. To get a control room and a live room so you can look from one into the other just doesn't work. Here's my first take on it ;) cheers John

Thanks John. That looks pretty nice. But can the post really be removed? It just looks to me that it's holding up the ceiling! But what do I know? Here's a pic:

John Sayers wrote:

Jay - the problem is the HVAC Unit being in the middle of the area. To get a control room and a live room so you can look from one into the other just doesn't work. Here's my first take on it ;) cheers John

A few more comments: - I like the line of sight from the mix position to the booth and live room; that seems good enough to me for seeing what's going on. - Is the irregular back wall of the control room a problem? - I'm afraid I have to work in some family storage space there somewhere (sorry if that got lost in my long post). Maybe the control room shrinks a bit? I'd like it to be comfortable but I don't need it to be huge (the control room that is). Storage access doesn't need to be easily reachable or anything (it's not stuff we need every day, just occasionally). Is there room for the control room to face down towards the booth? Then the space to the left could be storage if that works. The water pipe there in the top left also needs to be accessible somehow (the main turnoff valve is there). - Soundproofing would be job #1 here. Am I going to be able to work around all of the ducts and vents? You can see somewhat what I mean from the above photo, I believe. I have some more photos of ducts and the water pipes plus shots of the wall from outside and in if they're needed.

Sorry mate - I didn't notice the post :oops: I suppose you could replace the beam with a steel I Beam that would span that distance and have no need for the post. Or you could reverse the control room and studio so that post is in the studio where it would be tolerable. ;) cheers john

OK forgive my frankensteinesque re-working of your layout John but here's my thought (I'll do the next one up nicer). I think that I've got enough space there for the control room and the band in the top area and can add a 1/2 bath and lounge area as well as have some storage (the pink areas). I don't mind having a smaller control room as long as it can sound good; I'd rather mix alone anyway, frankly. I'll just add a playstation to the lounge to keep people busy. The pole could probably be worked around with an offcenter window or maybe even one on each side. Am I seeing double here or did I overlay something? Man, photoshop and beer plus exhaustion does not equal a clean looking graphic. Hope it's not too bad. And there's probably a door there should be a wall, although I guess it's good to be able to get from lounge to door without going through the booth.

Another idea I had was to move the stairs so that they turn to the right and trying to flip my last layout so that both control and live rooms are in the back part of the house. That also avoids more of the pipes and ducts. I'm not sure if the wall between the bottom left room (currently laundry room) and the area by the stairs is load bearing or not; given the pole in the other room it would have to be, wouldn't it? But it sounds like that can be worked around anyway.