Hi, folks! Here we go again! So I posted in the middle of last year looking to convert a garage to a rehearsal/project studio and decided if I was going to go through the trouble, I better really want to be in that house for many more years and my wife and I came to the conclusion we did NOT want to be there for years to come so we moved. We found a house that checked off all the boxes so to speak for the family with the exception of I didn't have that dedicated larger studio space I wanted BUT there is a 2 car garage. So now almost a year later, I'm ready to do the same - convert the garage in THIS house into a rehearsal space/project studio.
Some information about the space:
It's your fairly standard for a mid 90s built, Austin, TX home with an attached & finished 2 car garage(on a very thick concrete slab because of the slope of the property). The space is 19'x21'x8.4'. I'm looking to put a simple rectangular 'room in a room' and maximize the space as best I can inside to accommodate all the music gear I have. My vision is for it to be a place I can have my band play in while the family sleeps inside or I can record and mix my own song demos. I don't play in particularly loud bands thankfully. My budget is 5-10k. I set aside, 10k in total but would like to have 3-4k to invest in a few extra mics and instruments to add more color to arrangements.
The garage has a few problems I'm going to need to solve before framing can begin:
- the garage provides the only attic access in the form of a drop down ladder from the ceiling. I'll need to retain some way to get to the attic from the garage. Unfortunately I don't see a way to provide access to the water heater anywhere else but from the garage.
- the breaker box is on an exterior facing wall in the garage. Obviously I need to keep access to that.
- the broken sprinkler system box is right next to the breaker box. I'm just going to take it out entirely.
- there is a walkway 3 or 4 feet wide at the back of the garage that is probably a half foot raised from the garage floor so I'll need to account for that with the floor install.
- the garage door will need to remain as I will want to turn it back into a garage easily when I finally decide to move after many years.
- The ceiling is a little lower than I would like in the garage. There are probably 4 or 5 feet I could gain up into the attic if I wanted to remove the existing ceiling but I'm thinking budget might not afford this. The attic has a couple of trusses in it that I photographed kind of poorly but it's hard to capture it in one shot. Here goes though:
The rough idea:
My initial thoughts are, I'm going to have to live with the ceiling 'as is' due to cost. I thought I could create a little 3x4 airlock area in between the interior door and the door to the studio "room inside a room" and in that space I would mount the breaker box and install the attic access.
Questions before I move forward:
- knowing what I told you about the attic - does it even make sense to have someone come out to look into raising the ceiling in the garage (with my modest budget)?
- Is the airlock idea a decent plan? They way I see it, I can keep a little 3'x4' deadspace area to give me enough room to put the attic ladder and enough wallspace for the electric box.
- This was originally another question but I went back and reread the answers to my post last year and I think the last time I went through this exercise, it was suggested I just build another leaf in front of the garage making the garage the 3rd leaf. That makes sense to me but it didn't include it in my drawing but I guess that's what I'm going to do. Does that mean I should put rock wool in between the metal garage door and the middle leaf?
- with a single room of this size, should I just be considering resilient channel from the ceiling and if I do that, does that limit me to only one layer of drywall or can I squeeze two plus some drywall?
I plan on adding more detail to the basic layout once I get some answers from the wonderful oracle of knowledge you guys provide here.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! I have read so many posts here and I'm completely in awe of the knowledge shared here. BTW, I realize there are a zillion garage conversions on this site, but I haven't seen one close enough to mine to answer some of these questions(I'm sure I missed one exactly like mine somewhere). Thank you!
Starting my two car attached garage conversion
Originally posted at johnlsayers.com, topic 19442.
Welcome back! :)
Congratulations on the move! Glad that you found a place that's worth investing in, to get you a great studio.So now almost a year later, I'm ready to do the same - convert the garage in THIS house into a rehearsal space/project studio.
Thick concrete slab is good! Excellent start. When you say "attached", do you mean that the house and the garage share the same slab, or is the garage slab entirely separate from the house?home with an attached & finished 2 car garage(on a very thick concrete slab
So basically a single-room studio? Not a two room, with separate control room and live room?I'm looking to put a simple rectangular 'room in a room' and maximize the space as best I can inside to accommodate all the music gear I have. My vision is for it to be a place I can have my band play in while the family sleeps inside or I can record and mix my own song demos.
Your budget is probably very much on the low side. That's 400 ft2 of floor area, so 6k works out to just US$ 15 per square foot. :shock: That would barely cover the cost of building the walls, without considering the ceiling, flooring, doors, windows, electrical, HVAC, permits, fees, and everything else. Your HVAC system alone could easily cost 50% to 100% of your entire budget. I'd suggest you should start by quoting building materials, labor, equipment, permits, and fees, to give you a better idea of where your budget needs to be, then adjust it accordingly.My budget is 5-10k. I set aside, 10k in total but would like to have 3-4k to invest in a few extra mics and instruments to add more color to arrangements.
Is that the box for the entire house, or just for the garage?- the breaker box is on an exterior facing wall in the garage. Obviously I need to keep access to that.
If you were going to build a dedicated control room, then you could orient it such that the raised section was either at the back of the room, where your bass trapping and couch would go, or at the front of the room, where your speaker soffits and other treatment would go. If that's where the live room would go, then you might want to consider using that as the drum riser.- there is a walkway 3 or 4 feet wide at the back of the garage that is probably a half foot raised from the garage floor so I'll need to account for that with the floor install.
That severely limits your options. Garage doors have mechanisms associated with them, which usually hang down a long way form the joists and extend a long way back into the room. If you don't remove that, then your height is limited to whatever you can fit under the mechanism, which probably means not much more than 7 feet, unless you are very lucky. Most people who do garage conversions fix and seal their doors in place permanently, then remove the mechanism and build a "false" wall just in front of the door, to compete the outer-leaf. Then build the inner-leaf within the remaining space.- the garage door will need to remain as I will want to turn it back into a garage easily when I finally decide to move after many years.
The roof is on the SIDE of your garage!! :shock: :lol: :shot: Ahhh! OK, it's just the photos that are flipped sideways... :) Maybe you could fix that, the re-post them the right way up?The attic has a couple of trusses in it that I photographed kind of poorly
Hang on a sec.... The attic space has a floor: you said the garage has a ceiling. Then there's a roof deck above. That's already THREE leaves. Adding in your new inner-leaf ceiling is going to take you to FOUR leaves! :shock: I know you said that isolation isn't very important to you, but a our leaf system is going to force the MSM resonance up so high that you run the risk of not having any decent isolation at all in the low end.... something to think about.My initial thoughts are, I'm going to have to live with the ceiling 'as is' due to cost.
That's in a corner. Did you check up in the attic space to see if that is feasible? Is there any room up there to have the access ladder at that location? Would you be able to climb up and down it while carrying boxes, tools, etc? In your second pic, why is there framing and insulation up against the outer leaf brick wall? Is that already there, or do you plan to add that? Also, why is there new framing going across in front of the garage doors, but no drywall on that, and no insulation in the air cavity?and in that space I would mount the breaker box and install the attic access.
To be honest? No. You certainly don't have the budget to change your roof trusses of raise the roof, so I'd just leave it as is. You say you have 8' 4" room height (which means top surface of concrete slab to bottom edge of lowest joist or truss), and that's fine. That's good enough for a typical home studio. More height would be better, of course, but 8' 4" is fine. Provided that you bolt the doors in place and remove the door mechanism, of course.does it even make sense to have someone come out to look into raising the ceiling in the garage (with my modest budget)?
Yes, yes, and yes! :) Sometimes 3-leaf construction is inevitable. In that case, you to put most of the leaf mass on the middle leaf (50% of the total), and only 25% on each of the other two. That's the most efficient, for isolation.it was suggested I just build another leaf in front of the garage making the garage the 3rd leaf. That makes sense to me but it didn't include it in my drawing but I guess that's what I'm going to do. Does that mean I should put rock wool in between the metal garage door and the middle leaf?
RC is fine, but hanging from what? You said the garage is "finished", implying that it already has a drywall ceiling. You cannot attach RC to an existing drywall ceiling, for many reasons. So you'd need to remove that ceiling to get at the joists up there, then attach your RC to those. THEN you could hang your new drywall from that.- with a single room of this size, should I just be considering resilient channel from the ceiling and if I do that, does that limit me to only one layer of drywall or can I squeeze two plus some drywall?
say what? :shock: :D So you want to have two layers of drywall "plus some drywall? :shock: :!: :cop: That sounds a bit strange.... :) But yes, if you use RC correctly, you can indeed hang two layers of 5/8" drywall from it. Maybe even 3, depending on the manufacturer's specifications, and your local building code. But 2 should be more than enough for what you need, with only low isolation. I'm also confused about the breaker box: in two diagrams it appears on the right side wall of the garage, right next to the main doors. In the others it appears on the rear wall, next to the connecting door to the house! What happened? How did it change places? Are there TWO boxes, or is one of those "before" and the other "after"? And if one is "after", then why not put the breaker box where it belongs, inside the inner room? - Stuart -:shock: does that limit me to only one layer of drywall or can I squeeze two plus some drywall?