New Basement build In Portland Oregon USA

This is probably one of the most ambitious builds I have seen on John's site. I am fortunate to help a friend of mine build his dream studio. The planning stages have taken many turns along the way but finally the plan has taken shape and we are off to a great start. He hired a structural engineer to draw up and manage the first phase of this build. It was quite the undertaking and we were happy to have him and the professional team that assisted in the lowering of the floor and re-building of the foundation. The entire basement was lowered 2 feet. I must start this by saying the house is over 3600 square feet,three stories and 100 years old. The inside of the house was remodeled extensively 10 years ago and we wanted to make sure the integrity of the floors above the basement didn't settle and or crack any of the plaster work in the living part of the house. The entire basement is approximately 1300 square feet. It will include a work out room, a bathroom and storage area. The rest of the space will include the studio and the following rooms; Live room/ ensemble room approximately 300 square feet Control room approximately 150 square feet ISO booth Approximately 150 square feet Break room 150 square feet Still have to meet with an HVAC installer to make sure we can do what we need to the space. Daikins are on the list right now but we will wait to see if they come up with something different. I am not a sketch up artist but can do a basic layout. All walls are decoupled, MAM and most will be inside out walls to save as much space as possible. The ceiling will be RSIC with hat channel and the floor will be polished concrete to a 1500 level finish. I don't want to say the budget has no limits, but we will do what we need to do to make it probably the best studio in the area. Notice the helical piles. They are drilled through the dirt to support the foundation. They were drilled 67 feet to bed rock. Also notice the house HVAC and water heater are suspended. They will have a platform built underneath to support. The expense to lower them was not cost efficient and a platform was the better of the options. The wine rack was left down there to put in the break room in case you are wondering what it is. With that said, "THIS IS A PROJECT STUDIO" for personal use only. This will "NOT" be a commercial studio.

Here are some of the beginning shots

Wow! That's pretty impressive, Tom. A lot of money went into that, for sure. This has the makings of a great studio. But there's one major issue I noticed in the photos: The wine rack is empty! How on earth can you build a great studio if there is no Chilean wine on the rack! :shock: :D :!: :shot: You should fix that issue before you do anything else... Seriously, that's a nice space to build in. I'm looking forward to following the thread! - Stuart -

Hey Stuart, He is a red wine drinker so maybe you can recommend a few vineyards. I forgot to attach the caveman drawing I made up for our layout. It is not to scale but you can get an idea of where things will be. The bottom left area will be a small workout room. And the bathroom will have a shower in it. New pics of the stair case and furnace platform coming soon. Our next plan of action will be to polish the floor out before we get all the walls in and beef up the upper floor from the underside.

Furnace stand, new stairs and door

Hey Stuart, He is a red wine drinker so maybe you can recommend a few vineyards.

Ahhh! A man after my own heart! :) Sure, I'll put together a list of my favorite Cabernet Sauvignons. No problem! But I just might have to run out to the supermarket and sample a few first, to make sure they are still up to my standards!!!! :) :shock: :!: :roll: (At least, that's the excuse I'll give my wife.... but I'm not sure she'll buy it!).

Our next plan of action will be to polish the floor out before we get all the walls in and beef up the upper floor from the underside.

You might want to leave the final polishing until right at the end, since doubtless the surface will be marred in some way during construction. You also might want to consider covering the floor with OSB as much as possible while you build: a dropped hammer can easily chip concrete... Or a dragged tool box. Or a leaky tube of caulk. Or a can of paint kicked over accidentally. Or ... :)

Furnace stand, new stairs and door

Nice! Did the furnace go on isolation mounts? If not, you might want to consider that. Probably not a biggie at all, but if you are going to all this trouble and expense, you might as well do everything possible to make it perfect. Isolation mounts would keep any mechanical vibrations made by the furnace from getting into the slab. You could also add isolation sleeves to the ducts, to decouple them from the furnace itself, for the same reason: Keep unwanted noises out of the building itself.

I forgot to attach the caveman drawing I made up for our layout.

It's probably too late by now, as I guess your plans are already locked in, but I can think of a few improvements that could be made there... :) But what you have there is fine, as far as I can see. - Stuart -

Stuart, Improvements are always welcome. We are trying to utilize the space to it's maximum and line of site is very important. He is a guitar player and will have all his amps (which are too many to count) in the ISO. That is why we put the ISO where we did. We are toying with the idea of building an inset shelf/cabinet in the control room with all the amp heads, for easy tweaking The live room will house a drum set and 3 amps for live sessions and tracking, plus a small PA. The bathroom and stair case are unmovable obviously and the storage area leaves access to irrigation and the home sound system. The workout area seemed the most obvious but if you have some ideas, please by all means. My company polishes concrete floors for a living. To properly get in all the tight corners and close to walls, it will be much easier and a much nicer finished floor to polish it first. Many people use the word polished concrete loosely and don't understand the difference. We will actually hone the concrete with varying levels of diamond blades and very large grinders. It is a very similar procedure like marble and granite is polished. NO Sealer will be applied until the end of the project. But a hardener will be applied right after the polishing is completed. Protection is very important and we will do our best. I attached a picture of polished and dyed concrete. This is what the floor will look like when we are finished. The furnace will be in its own room decoupled from the rest of the build. However the doors to the room will need to be louvered for air flow because they are gas. Those doors will be in the hallway outside the studio. In addition the furnace is very quiet. But I think a once over is notable, just to make sure. Tom

"Notice the helical piles. They are drilled through the dirt to support the foundation. They were drilled 67 feet to bed rock" Just for clarity so others who view do not get the idea that this is an acoustic device, the helical piles were installed to coordinate with the footprint of the build and to support the existing structure once the existing support was removed. I have the same notions that the HVAC may not be all it could be but I do agree that the floor polishing should happen before the walls are installed but protection after the fact is a must. any hard material will most likely be a minus, we use carpet turned fabric side (top side) facing down to protect flooring as we have found that the shifting of the material underfoot will scratch a hard surface. But you know your job Tom, I am just offering some ideas about other solutions.

Floor is all polished and stained. Next up is to beef up the first floor from the underside with two layers of Sheet rock between the floor joists.

Well we finally got to building after a long wait. Inspections took awhile to get and after realizing our personal lives/jobs/family requirements, we hired a builder to do most of the work. I have had many days of supervising, re-doing assemblies and lots of caulking. Trying to explain that "NO, it wont work like that" has become tiresome and redundant to say the least. But we are on the road to getting things framed out finally. The HVAC guys have been by and will set the plates and feed the lines for the Daikins this week. Electrician was out today to tidy up some loose wires ( he removed quite a few dead lines a couple week back) We hired a sheet rock crew to do the beef up to the upper floor ( that took a week and a half to complete) And trying to build the outer leaf around the house HVAC was a challenge, but it's finally finished And the owner finally came up with the name for the studio. " Cellar Studios" due to the wine rack in the break room :) And changed the layout a little bit to accommodate the largest live room we could.

Lots of progress happening. We went to the Fabric store and bought over 100 yards of fabric. The two ladies that helped us where hysterical. They couldn't believe we needed 100 yards. The Daikin installers where out this morning and confused as all get out about the inside out walls. But after a short conversation they understood why we were installing them the way we are. The pile of lumber and sheet rock is dwindling very fast. Things are coming together. Snakes should arrive today. We had them custom built. Trunk Rubber showed up yesterday for the doors. We found a local supplier :D Doors were ordered today. Cannot wait to see them installed. You all will be amazed. Have a great weekend all T

Almost finished with all the interior walls. Hopefully by tomorrow. And the ceiling is next. Installed snakes with head phone lines Electrician started today running all the home runs for lights and plugs. Plus he hooked the Daikins up. Peace T

Well a lot has happened in a week and a half. The lid is finally in and all the insulation is up. We have decided on a smooth ceiling. That will take about four days to complete before we can paint it. So the fabric and slats will have to wait for the ceiling to be finished first. The doors are arriving tomorrow and will get sanded and stained outside. It took a full day to get the RSIC and hat channel in because the 100 year old framing was obviously not flat for the ceiling. We hired drywall hangers for the ceiling. It took them about 5 hours to install both layers. Caulked and taped between layers. The electrician was out and ran star grounding throughout. He also installed one switch in the CR that will kill all the lights through out. AV guy was out and ran surround sound and video for a drop down 10' video screen for Youtube watching and live backdrop editing. Fresh air is run from CR to the ISO. Silencers boxes still need to be built. Break room is rocked and taped and the cool ideas keep flowing for that room. Next week hope to have some doors installed Peace T

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Keep the pictures coming :D Really enjoying this build, fantastic attention to detail, and that floor :wink:

Thanks Rogue. I should have a few more this week. OK so Thursday and Friday didn't go so well. I showed up and the guys were staining/sealing the doors. I then noticed the stop's were left in. I had specifically asked the stops be separate so we could install the trunk rubber after the fact. So the doors got delivered back and we should have them tomorrow (without stops) So we switched gears and decided to get the silencer boxes built and installed. Everything was going well, UNTIL!!! The carpenter dropped one of the Fantechs.......He tried to lighten the impact to the concrete by extending his foot. Mind you its a little warm here so everyone is in shorts (should have jeans on during construction) The metal edge of the fan hit his shin and opened up a large gash requiring 12 stitches. He's OK and back on the job today (Monday) finishing up the install of the silencers. We will be painting the ceiling tomorrow and then on to Fabric and the finish line with slats. electrician is coming Thursday to install the panel and start install wall receptacles and switches. Its coming together nicely Peace T

Ouch! Poor guy! Job site safety and PPE are often put on the back burner, but accidents do happen. That doesn't sound like a good day, for sure. But those doors look rather nice! And so do the silencers. - Stuart -

Thanks for the props Stuart. Our carpenter is a finish carpenter and when I saw the silencer boxes, I was sad we would be covering them up. Nerd in me loves the mechanical aspects of the build 8) Primer is going on the ceiling and walls today, maybe even the finish coat. Electrician can't make it until Friday now, but we should be able to start installing fabric tomorrow or Thursday. The carpenter has moved out into the hallway and is working on framing the bathroom until the doors get back. Ordered automatic sweeps and hydraulic latch closers for the doors. Plus the door handles. Peace T

We got a lot finished last week. Its coming together nicely. Doors stained, bass traps, lighting, fabric and ceilings painted Enjoy T

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Couldn't wait until tomorrow to post these Enjoy T

Slowing down a bit with finish work. Doors are all installed, closer and trunk rubber gaskets almost finished. 3 more doors to do. Slats going up and hope to be finished this week Peace T

Looks very good, great job!

Thanks Javier, Good to see you still building and having as much fun as I do with these builds. Well as they say, the devil is in the details. So many little things to do daily. It doesn't seem like we are getting much done these days. Solid brass door knobs installed, 20 in total Slats are all finished now The owner just can't wait to see how things are going to look so he has brought down a few guitars, there will be 15 on the wall when all is said and done. Chairs arrived and he had to see how they looked, but are back upstairs now. HD projector and 10' screen are installed with 7.1 surround sound in the live room. This will be for instructional videos and working on some back drop scenes for live shows. His kids did ask if they could bring down the XBox. He said absolutely NOT :mrgreen: Automatic door sweeps are painstakingly being installed right now. Most of the clouds are built and installed and general clean up has taken place to keep the dust at a minimum before we install windows and bring the gear in. The floor still need a finish coat before that Fresh air is all finished off and running smoothly Almost there. Glass shows up on Friday and we should be ready to move in after that :yahoo: Peace T