long narrow room - garage 1 or 2?

Hi everyone; We decided to sell our old house and found a great place that we take possession of tonight. The future studio area is 46 feet long by 14 feet wide by 7 feet 2 inches tall. At one end is a fireplace; I'd like to leave room there for a small lounge area. I'd also like to maximize the live room area; it will see as much use as a rehearsal room for my band as it will for recording and we're now used to playing in a huge open warehouse. Luckily there's only 3 of us. A vocal booth would be nice but I'd be willing to give it up for more live room space. Ideally the live area is not on the far left side of the room, that's directly under the bedrooms. My first thought was to use Garage Studio 1 and slide the control room over to shrink down the booth and expand the live room. I'm not sure if that's too tight for a vocal booth to the left; if so it could be storage (maybe machine room). But lately I've been thinking about something like Garage Studio 2 with a longer studio area. I like that I'd be facing the band directly, and a door could be added (or not) for extra access not through the live room (it can go anywhere along that wall). Obviously the door between the live room and the lounge can be anywhere along the wall, and the wall itself could be angled if that would be beneficial. Here's my 2 thoughts as well as the basic layout:

And here's 2 photos - the fireplace from just inside the door and the long view from the right side of the diagram:

So we have a new space Jay? Try this cheers John

John Sayers wrote:

So we have a new space Jay? Try this cheers John

Thanks John, Yeah, we found a house that's almost perfect for us. I did sacrifice a bit in the space for the studio (ceiling height mainly) but I still think it will still work out pretty well. Sorry for the time you took on my old place! But anyway, that looks good. Those sliding doors should help keep the place feeling open. I do wonder if that's enough live room space, but I guess the control room would be squarer as it gets smaller. I'll tape it out this weekend and see how it feels. One other thing, it looks like just one door to the lounge, so I would think that would need to be insulated as thoroughly as everything else. I was originally thinking to keep that area isolated from the live room so I could keep the original floor and ceiling for some extra height (our drummer is 6'5") and also to save a few bucks on materials. I was also concerned about the fireplace transmitting sound up to the living room (which is up and off to the right on the diagram but shares the fireplace, only on the other side). But if those aren't factors (I'm guessing the cost might not be as different as I think) then I like the open feel. With just the one sliding glass door would there be lots of bleed into the lounge area? I'm thinking it could double as a vocal booth with visual communication with the band (and the control room if no one steps in the way). Maybe insulating that area is a good idea after all, and maybe with a second door? Hopefully that wouldn't take up too much extra space. Thanks, Jay P.S. are those conrol room doors parallel? On the garage layouts they're more angled.

You could put a double glass door and window to the lounge - I was just trying to avoid a double wall because of space. I bet you will use it as a booth :) so go for the double door. What do you mean by the floor heights - are you going to float a floor in the live room?? What is your ceiling BTW - it looks like tiles - is there a space above them?? cheers john

John Sayers wrote:

You could put a double glass door and window to the lounge - I was just trying to avoid a double wall because of space. I bet you will use it as a booth :) so go for the double door. What do you mean by the floor heights - are you going to float a floor in the live room?? What is your ceiling BTW - it looks like tiles - is there a space above them?? cheers john

yes, I'm definitely going to float the floor. If my wife is bothered by the music than I'm constricted to certain times, so isolation is key. It's also a residential area and I don't want to make any waves. There's only 3 in my band but we generally play pretty loud. But I'm also planning to start a low wattage amp collection. There is a few inches above the ceiling, it's 7'2" to the bottom of the floor beams (joists? sorry I'm not good with the terminology. Luckily I have some friends that are good that way). The actual floor is up above that. It's radiant heated (there's a thread over in construction) as well so I'm faced with adding a little more floor space if I want to re-route a new set of pipes.