Vilnius based new studio build, Lithuania

i am renting a room with dimensions of: W8500 mm x L5800 mm. It has sloped ceiling thus the lower end by the windows is H2830 mm and the high end is H3820 mm (you can see the image below):

Sounds like a very nice sized place! Good possibilities... :thu:

and two other studios on the same floor which have no problem with the sound since they are also well isolated.

... "on the same floor" ??? That implies that you are not on the ground floor? You are on an upper floor?

add fireproof gypsum to the outer leaf of the room.

I don't understand: you already HAVE the outer leaf! you said it is brick and measures 8.5m x 5.8m x 2.8-3.2m. That IS your outer leaf. You don't need another one!

You can see my CR concept here:

Why are you cutting off the corners like that? Corners are excellent places for bass trapping: by eliminating the corners, you are wasting a lot of space, and throwing away great opportunities for treatment. I keep on seeing that shape, but I'm not sure where it comes from: Either it is being totally misused, out of context, or it is just one of those infamous Internet myths that carries on circulating but refuses to die the death it deserves...

The room ratio i have chosen is as follows: 1:1,5:2,13

Louden's third ratio? Why did you choose that one, when you have so much space available, and opportunities for a better ratio in a larger room?

1) Am i calculating the room dimensions correctly? What i mean by this question is: which dimensions of the outer leaf are used to calculate the ratio correctly?

Imagine that you are standing inside the room, right after you finish building it, but before you put in any furniture or acoustic treatment. The hard, solid, massive, rigid walls that you see around you, are the ones you use for calculating the room modes. However, with the sixteen-sided room shape that you are showing, you cannot use Bob Golds' calculator, nor any other simple calculator. All room mode calculators assume that your room has only six sides, arranged as a rectangular prism, with three pairs of parallel boundary surfaces, at right angles to each other. Those calculators will not produce valid, realistic predictions for your multi-walled, multi-angled non-parallel room.

I have done a room modes analysis and the Bonello diagram comes out as follows (which to my knowledge is pretty fine):

It would be, if your room was a 6-sided rectangle. But that's not the case, so your predicted Bonello chart is pretty much meaningless.

2) What do you think about the square niche in back side of the CR?

I am thinking that it creates a wonderful resonant cavity, where bass will build up fantastically, without any damping at all, totally messing up the room acoustics, and making the rear 3 meters of the room unusable for critical listening.

3) The speakers will be soffit mounted,

How? You are cutting off the front corners where the soffits need to go.

but I have concerns weather the front soffit panel will be large enough for the speaker?

Assuming that the small angled "cut-off" walls at the front left and right are what you are referring to as "soffits", the answer is no: they are likely too small to be of much use. Soffit mounting is an excellent concept, and very much recommended... but it has to be done right.

I have read that the soffit panel should be 0.25 of lowest wavelength the speaker produces.

I have read a LOT of things about sound on the internet: only a small fraction of them turn out to be true. In reality, the concept of soffit mounting is to create an "infinite baffle", meaning a front surface that appears to be infinitely large to the sound waves emanating from the speaker. That's a lofty goal, as theoretically it would have to measure hundreds of meters in all directions to do that. Happily, it isn't necessary to do that. One full wavelength in all directions will do the job reasonably well: Sadly, that still means that you'd need a soffit a dozen meters each way: hard to do, realistically, in most real-world studios. So we have to compromise, by going smaller. The smaller you go, the less effect you get. A quarterwave is a good compromise, but even that isn't achievable in most studios. So you have to go smaller still. In the real world, as long as you can at least double the width of the speaker cabinet itself, you are doing well. If you can go more than that, then excellent. Vertically, you often can get close to a quarter wave, but horizontally, that's tough, unless you have a very big room. There are also other issues: with small sizes vs. wavelengths, you start getting "focusing" or "lobing" effects, and to compensate for that, you need to offset the speaker so that it is NOT in the middle of the soffit. On the plus side, you can blend the soffit wall into the front wall and side wall, increasing the effect. On the down-side, that creates a sort of horn-loading shape for the speaker, which might or might not be good. On the up-side.... As you can see, there are lots of "up" sides and lots of "down" sides to designing a soffit. The basic plan is to make it as big as you possibly can (by eliminating the unnecessary angled side-wall cut-off thingies, for example) and to offset the speaker form the center as much as you reasonably can do. The rest can be done at the stage of room tuning, to a certain extent.

4) I am not sure if i should angle my inner leaf walls or not.

Yes and no. "Yes" if you have the space to do so without unduly affecting your room volume, and if you need to do that for treatment reasons. "No" otherwise. "Yes" if the design concept you are following requires that, "No" otherwise.

but John has stated in some of them that he is not opting for angled walls anymore, some other guys say that too.

Yep. Count me in. I only ever angle walls these days where it is absolutely needed to create an RFZ, NER, CID or similar room, and even then I only angle as much wall as is totally necessary. The rest I leave parallel then treat accordingly, unless there is a powerful overriding reason to do otherwise.

I understand modes are much harder to calculate with angled walls, but then again - i dont know much about that and im not sure if i really MUST calculate them very extensively?

Correct! Modes are a fact of life, and ALL rooms have them regardless of shape or size. You should go with a basic rectangular shape that has a set of overall dimensions that show no major modal issues, then work from there. By angling the front part of the room, you will be "softening" the effects of the axial modes, and also adding tangential modes. That's a good thing. But you are right: as long as you have a fairly decent basic shape, you do not need to go crazy about modal response.

5) Is the approach Ive chosen correct? Maybe I should choose some other design with the room i have? The reason behind this design is because i am still planning to leave a small space in the front for my mersonal office where i would do my engineering work.

Move the entire structure over to the left wall, and up against the back wall, so that you can eliminate those parts of what you are showing. In other words, use two sides of the existing room as two sides of your outer leaf, then just build the other two sides to complete the outer shell. - Stuart -

AntonMcmillan wrote:

Hey guys, I have gone with the idea Stuart has offered and will put the CR in the corner like this:

Not preserved: 20160213_IdeaCR+DIM-2.jpg

Looking at the design above, I'd say that half of the rectangular frame is unnecessary. In particular the two 'walls' you have along the brick walls (top and left in the diagram above). The other two walls are essentially the continuation of the two brick walls to complete your outer leaf. The RFZ design inside is your inner leaf and should be structurally independent of the rectangular room.

You mean the corners in the sides?

No, I mean ALL of the corners! And the sides. You are slicing off huge chunks of your room, unnecessarily. You later fixed the front by turning the "cut-off" corners into soffits, which is great, but the sides and back remain sliced and diced...

I have talked to the company who rents the place to remove the door and they agreed on it.

Excellent! That's good news.

I have talked to the company who rents the place to remove the door and they agreed on it.

Great. So now you can lose the two framed walls on those two sides, as rockindad said. That's just wasting space, time, and money.

I have gone with the idea Stuart has offered and will put the CR in the corner like this:

Yes, but you are still using that very weird, "chopped-off" shape. Just extend the soffits all the way out to the inner-leaf side walls, lose the strange angled things on the side, and at the back.

I will go for the STC69 build.

STC is a useless measure for studio isolation. It is meaningless. The STC system does not take into account the bottom two and a half octaves of the musical spectrum, and it does not take into account the top two and a half octaves of the musical spectrum. It only takes into account a thin sliver of the spectrum in the center, which is roughly where human speech and typical office noises occur, but totally non-representative of music. Forget about using STC rated construction for studios. I can build you a wall rated at STC 40 that is really lousy at isolating loud music, and I can build you another wall rated at STC 40 that is way better at isolating loud music. Also, the above notwithstanding, STC-69 is pretty hard to achieve... you must have a very good budget, and lots of time to spend on this!

Should i keep the CR strictly rectangular

I don't know why you are asking that, because what you are showing in all of your diagrams so far is NOT rectangular. It isn't even close to rectangular. A rectangular room has six sides: 4 walls, 1 floor, 1 ceiling. Your diagrams show TEN sides: you have eight walls, one floor and one ceiling.... Why are you asking about a "keeping" the room rectangular when your room is not rectangular anyway? Are you planning to remove all the strangely angled walls and go back to making it purely rectangular?

I have remodelled the room to have a ratio of 1:1,61:1,91

No you haven't for the same reason above: your room is not rectangular. Room ratios and simple room mode calculators only apply to six-sided rectangular rooms. They do not apply to rooms that have more than six sides, or less than six sides, or where the walls are not parallel.

should i angle it to the ceiling?

What basic design philosophy are you following? Of that philosophy calls for an angled ceiling, then angle it (or hang a hard-backed angled cloud). If not, then don't. And once again, if you angle your ceiling then room ratios and room mode calculators are out the window again, since they only apply to rooms with parallel surfaces.

I assume angling would provide more possibilities for treatment, correct?

Not really. It would provide different possibilities for treatment, yes, but not necessarily more possibilities. Whether or not those differences are useful for your room, depends on the basic design philosophy you are using.

What do you think about the geometry of the CR?

I think you should fix it to remove the chopped-off corners, to do the soffits properly, and to show the location of the drywall and initial treatment. Right now, it is just framing so one can only guess at where the drywall goes, how thick it is, which way it faces, where the treatment goes, what type it is, what its purpose is, etc.

I want to narrow the walls and add more space in the back for treatment.

The room is already VERY narrow! Why do you want to narrow it even more? Also, you WOULD have a lot more room at the back for treatment if you would just get rid of the chopped-off angles....

not having a framework might present problems when trying to completely seal the outer leaf for air tightness.. Is that right?

No. Your concrete will need sealing in any case, with a good quality masonry sealer, and your framing will butt up against that tightly, with abundant caulk in between to seal the gaps and cracks. No problem.

I have redesigned the CR framework and i think i will stick to this one:

Going the wrong way: it went from ten sides to ELEVEN sided! :ahh: Also, your soffits cannot and must not be air-tight: How would you vent them, if they were hermetically sealed?

the areas where the speakers are (red) have to be sealed airtight from the sides where other treatment will be (green), right?

No. Why would you want to seal up that area? See above: if it is sealed, then you have no way of providing the needed ventilation for the speakers... The inner-leaf MUST be sealed, yes, absolutely, but the soffit cavity must NOT be sealed. Also, why do you want slot walls so close to your ears, and at your first reflection points? Slot walls are tuned resonant devices. They change the frequency response curve of what you hear.... - Stuart -

I have remodelled the stud framework to allign with the gypsum boards.

Ummmm.... if you just use normal conventional framing at either 16"OC or 24"OC, (or 400mm OC / 600 mm OC for metric) then that would work out automatically! I'm not understanding why you had to do something "special" to make it work out... are you SURE you are correctly following standard framing principles?

The idea is tu build a sort of a modular frame system that consists of 5 pieces (ceiling and 4 walls) that will be screwed together to form the room.

Sorry, but that is NOT the correct way to frame a room. You should probably buy a book on basic framing and construction techniques, and learn how to do it properly.

2) LEFT WALL PIECE - 50x100 mm pine studs with support studs to hold the ceiling framework. This piece goes directly to the concrete wall.

If you already have a concrete wall there, then why would you need to attach framing to it? I'm not understanding this design at all.

3) REAR WALL PIECE - 50x100 mm pine studs with support studs to hold the ceiling framework.

As above.... The stud spacing looks to way too far apart for proper ceiling support us ONLY 16"OC or 24"OC for that. On the other hand, if the purpose of this is ONLY to support the ceiling, and and it is directly attached to the concrete anyway, then why not just use a ledger board for that, anchor-bolted into the concrete, and of sufficient dimensions to provide the needed structural integrity?

A) Level the floor to be as even as possible.

How? Using which materials and which techniques?

B) Plaster the walls to be as even as possible.

Which walls? The existing concrete walls do not need plastering: they just need sealing, with good quality masonry sealer. You COULD plaster them, but that would be added expense, and since the won't be visible, they don't need to be particularly smooth or even.

C) Build the CEILING panel and add gypsum boards to it.

How are you going to do that when the walls are not up yet? :shock:

G) Put the CEILING piece onto the REAR WALL piece and while adjusting to the room measurements -

I'd really like to see your detailed plan for doing that: the ceiling will way many hundreds of kilograms, and will be LARGER than the size of the walls, so it will be very interesting to see your plan for carrying the finished ceiling into the room and raising it above your head....

H) After the CEILING, FRONT and REAR pieces are in place ... build the RIGHT WALL and LEFT WALL pieces.

How do you plan to prevent the unsupported ceiling from collapsing while you are in the process of building those two walls?

I) Put these pieces into place and start adding GKF gypsum boards.

How do you plan to prevent the wall framing from collapsing sideways (in sheer) before you put the structural sheer panels on? I think you have no idea how dangerous this plan is, and how many different ways it could kill you or seriously injure you as you try to implement it: I think you should NOT try to do this yourself, and instead hire a competent, qualified contractor to do it for you.

To clarify - here is how gypsum will be layed onto the frame:

I do not understand the reasoning behind that sheathing plan at all. It makes no sense. Why do you not want to use the conventional, traditional approved, safe, proven framing concepts? What benefit do you think you can gain with this strange system you are inventing? Is it even allowed by your local building regulations? Did you get a qualified structural engineer to check your calculations, and make sure that your framing really can support the huge dead load and live loads that you will clearly be imposing on it? I find it hard to believe that a structural engineer would approve that....

there is only a single layer of gypsum boards that are 12,5 mm in thickness.

12.5mm is not thick enough for good isolation. Use only 16mm drywall. Drywall in general does not provide much strength in sheer. Since your walls are structural (load-bearing) you WILL need to provide sheer resistance. Drywall by itself is no good for that, and probably is not permitted by your regulations.

1. Is one layer of 12,5 mm gypsum enough?

Enough for what?

I was planning for 2 layers and a total of 25 mm of drywall on the CEILING, FRONT and RIGHT panels.

Why only on those ones?

I assume intersections where the gypsum boards meet should not overlap at the same exact places for the 2 layers?

Correct.

do I need to make the second layer in an exact opposite order so that the intersections do not meet at the same spots?

Correct.

3. As i have mentioned before - the room is on the second floor

Did you get a structural engineer to check that you will not be overloading the floor with too much weight? You will be placing hundreds (maybe thousands) of kilograms of extra mass on the floor, concentrated in linear loading. You MUST get a structural engineer to confirm that it is safe to do that. If you cause the floor to collapse due to overloading it without authorization, YOU will be responsible, both financially and criminally if anyone is injured or killed.

the first floor is a truck repair dock that has large apparatus, lifts and other machinery that generate noise and vibrations. I am pretty sure i should add some kind of insulation to the floor. Im not sure how much and how complex that insulation should be?

You do it like this: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8173 http://archive.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/obj/irc/d ... /ir802.pdf

I was planning to utilize the 50 mm thickness of the floor stud to add some insulation and make the CR floor leveled to the stud height,

Why? What is the reason you want the floor level with the sole plate? If you do conventional walls (not "inside out" walls), then the sole plates won't even be visible when you put your final flooring down, as the sheathing will have covered them: If you do inside-out construction (which you seem to be doing) then it also doesn't matter. Before you go any further, I'd suggest that you buy and carefully study two books: "Master Handbook of Acoustics" by F. Alton Everest, and "Home Recording Studio: Build it Like the Pros", by Rod Gervais. You need to read and fully understand all of the concepts described in both of those, before you can carry on designing your studio. The way you are going right now is dangerous, and probably illegal. - Stuart -

I am using normal conventional framing

No: Sorry, but you just aren't. That is NOT conventional framing. You should buy a book about construction techniques, and learn how to do framing properly.

I dont understand why its not a viable option to design a studio CR from modules?

How will you ensure that the mass (surface density) remains constant throughout the construction? How will you ensure multiple hermetic, air-tight seals at each joint between modules? A studio is NOT built the same way as a normal house, office, school, shop or church. Same materials, different techniques. Very different.

The idea of the frame is to support the ceiling module and help fix acoustic treatment when it is added later on.

Acoustic treatment goes inside the INNER leaf room of the studio, NOT in between the inner leaf and outer leaf. What use is treatment that is not inside the room? You have not yet shown your design for the inner leaf.

I found out that the room has a plasterboard leaf around it already.

that will be your outer leaf. It will NOT be visible once you build your inner-leaf. Therefore there is no need to plaster it, or do any other finishing treatment. That surface will be inside your wall cavity, so it will never, ever be visible to anyone. There is no need to paint it, plaster it, or decorate it any way, nor to put any treatment on it.

After that - two layers of gypsum boards will be added to the module and it will be moved to the front of the room like this:

At that point, it will weigh roughly 800 kg. Eight hundred kilograms. Roughly one thousand seven hundred pounds. How do you plan to move that across the floor? It seems to me you don't have a clue about the weights, stresses, tensions, and structures involved here. ow do you plan to move something that weights over 800 kilograms?

I am not yet sure if the framework would later serve other purposes when adding treatment..):

It wont. It will be INSIDE the wall cavity, between the two leaves. It serves no purpose at all.

a team of around 8-10 people would lift the CEILING PIECE and put it on the existing framework,

People in Lithuania must be a lot stronger than I thought! Are you all professional weightlifters? Olympic champions? You say that each of those people will be capable of dead-lifting over one hundred kilograms, and raising it a meter above their heads, steadily and safely, then positioning it carefully, with accuracy, then holding it in place, while other people build two more walls under it.... This is NOT going to happen. You are NOT thinking this thing through. You have no idea what is going on here. For example, you show the ceiling framing turned SIDEWAYS! :shock: :!: :roll: It is FLAT in all of your drawings. It will NOT be capable of supporting the huge load of two layers of drywall spanning 5m. Do you REALLY think that 40mm of wood can support that? According to standard span tables, you would need joists that are AT LEAST 190mm tall to support that load, provided that you have an excellent grade of structural wood, or 235mm tall for lower grades of wood. You are underestimating the structural strength of wood by a factor of nearly 600%. If your team of Olympic weightlifting team did manage to lift that thing up, it would break and collapse on top of them, injuring or killing some of them as they tried. Having 800 kg fall on your head is not a good thing... You CANNOT span more than a maximum of 1.3m using 2x4 joists on their sides, 600mm OC, with a dead load of 27 kg/m2, and deflection of L/720. That is the limit of the structural integrity of common joist wood. I repeat: you have no idea what you are doing here. You should stop right now, and get professional help. What you are suggesting is dangerous, illegal, and will result in injury.

another team would put the FRONT WALL and the RIGHT WALL pieces for support

They won't need to, because the ceiling lift team will be crushed already: Better to use that wood to make stretchers to carry out the injured, and coffins to bury the dead.

Yes Stuart, I would not do this whole plan on my own at any circumstances. Like i have mentioned before - my friend runs a construction company and he will aid me in all the ways needed. Construction, manpower and technology etc.

You have a friend who runs a construction company, and he told you that it was fine to use 2x4 joists laid 600mm OC on their SIDE to span a distance of 5 meters with a load of 800 kilograms????? And then he said it would be fine to have a few people hand lift that into place, and hold it there, by hand, while others build two more walls below it????? Really???? I find that very, very, VERY hard to believe..... Remind me to never call your friend to build a house for me....

I went with the modular path because building the CR with the dimensions i have chosen and adding gypsum to the ceiling would be impossible due to low ceiling of the initial room itself.

Once again, you have no idea what you are talking about. It is NOT impossible at all! I did it a few weeks ago.... Here is a photo of a studio that I designed for a customer of mine in Australia. This ceiling was, indeed, built exactly the way you say it is "impossible" to build: Joists going in: Cross bracing going in: In both of the above photos, there is a gap of just 4cm between the top of the inner-leaf joists and the bottom of the outer-leaf joists, which hold up the house above. Here is the final completed ceiling: There's a layer of plywood on top of that framing, plus a layer of fiber-cement board, with a layer of Green Glue in between, for constrained layer damping. The total surface density of that is about the same as your two layers of drywall.... So tell me again how it is "impossible" to do this!!!!! . . . Just because YOU don't know how to do it, and your "contractor" friend does not know how to do it, that does not mean that it is impossible. When done properly, not only is it possible, it is also simple and safe. I do this all the time: It is very possible to do, and not that hard to do, when the studio is designed correctly and built correctly by people who know what they are doing. It did not need a team of Olympic weight lifters to put that ceiling in: two man did it all by themselves, without any trouble, and without any danger. This is the final gap between the top of the inner-leaf ceiling, and the bottom of the outer-leaf ceiling. You can see the bottom edge of one of the engineered joists that holds up the house above, then the tiny gap to the top of the studio ceiling below. It is NOT impossible: The proof is right there, in the photos.

I have not yet done calculations for the structure.

That is obvious. And I doubt that you would even know HOW to do them. If you did know how to do them, you would never have designed a ceiling with the joists on their sides. Structural engineering is not something you can learn from a book in a few hours.... Do you ee the huge joists in that ceiling, in the pictures above? That's the size joists you need to support a modular ceiling that is designed and built correctly to isolate a studio well....

I will ask colleagues to make these for me and if the structure is not efficient - I will update the framework with added support.

I would STRONGLY suggest that you should NOT do that! It is clear that you don't know what you are doing here, and you are just guessing. Hire an experienced studio designer to design te entire studio for you, and a qualified structural engineer to do the calculations and check the structures for you, and a qualified, experienced contractor to build it for you. If you continue down the current path, your plan is doomed to failure. You might very well end up with seriously injured people, or dead people, if you try to do that. Do not try.

Do you mean I should use 16 mm even if i plan to add 2 layers of 12,5?

Yes. Two layers of 16mm drywall, for a total of 32mm. of drywall, plus 235mm of joists to support it.

The company that rents the premise has approved the concept.

Is the "company that rents the premise" a qualified structural engineering company? Will they sign in writing that they approve supporting a load of 800 kg on 2x4 ceiling joists set sideways and spaced 600 OC? I would REALLY like to see such a letter, signed by them....

I have no intent for the sole plate to be visible.

Why do you think it would be visible???? Once again, it is clear that you have no idea about construction. The sole plates will NOT be visible, if the room is finished correctly... and if you cover them with cement, then you will NOT be able to finish the room correctly! How would you attach your wall covering, if there are no sole plates to attach it to???? :shock:

Also, I wanted the door of the CR to be as close to the floor as possible (I though they operate better and longer when closer to floors).

Wrong again. This is a studio. You need multiple threshold seals under the bottom of the door. Like this: There are three complete seals around that door, one of which is a spring-loaded drop-down seal that is activated by closing the door. So what you thought is wrong. That is not the correct way to build a studio door. It cannot be "as close to the floor as possible". ----- My advice to you would be to STOP. Don't design any more, and don't build anything at all until you either fully understand the concepts, or have hired people who do understand them to do it for you. - Stuart -

Hey Anton. No problem! Glad that you took it with a sense of humor, and realized where I was coming from. I really am trying to help you, and trying to keep you safe (along with your Olympic weightlifters... :) ) I guess I just gave it out a bit too strongly there. Sorry if I offended you. But you did get the point I was trying to make!

And im very eager to go through this build ASAP, thats why I rushed to do the framing "just to do it"..

Understood! Maybe you should call your place "Studio Nike" when it is finished... :shot: :)

I am well into Rod Gervais book at the moment and once i finish that ill go on to something more detailed, because I still want to do the design myself (Im pretty stubborn about my goals, even if I underestimated the efforts I need to achieve them).

Rod's book is good for learning the ins and outs of studio construction, and the pifalls to avoid, and all the details that you need to get in to, but I'd still suggest you get Master Handbook of Acoustics ("MHoA") and work your way through that too. It gives you the acoustic background that you need to understand why things should be designed they way they are. It's an excellent book. Acoustics is not intuitive in many ways: sound does not actually behave the way we think it does. It's a lot more complex than most people think, so it's very necessary to learn about how it REALLY works, to take that into account in your design.

One thing i know i will consult a structural engineer about framing techniques (I have watched several videos and read some rough specifications after your comment to get an idea of what im dealing with, but I wil definitely consult a professional. ESPECIALLY ABOUT MOUNTING DOUBLE GYPSUM IN TIGHT CEILINGS!!!)

Yup. That's a lot of mass. Drywall weighs around 12kg per square meter (16mm fire-rated drywall), so two layers of that covering 30 m2 really is 720 kg. I wasn't kidding bout that. Plus the weight of the timber itself, plus nails, insulation, Green Glue (if you use it), caulk, and everything else. 800 kg is actually probably on the low side. That's why I never try to raise entire ceilings at once. It's just too heavy ant too dangerous.

I understand some of my ideas can be frustrating and some of your replies are frustrating to me too, because what I have in my mind is exactly what you mention, I just might not have the proper level of technical english to fully explain, but that is because I lack the experience on the topic.

Your English is pretty darn good, actually! It's one hell of a lot better than my grasp of Lithuanian, which is a bit less than nothing at all...

Thank You for your tireless effort dealing with us 'noobs' here, Stuart!

:thu: Thanks for the kind words, especially in light of my previous post.... :) I'm sure we can figure out how to make your place work. The best thing of all is that you got the message, and didn't go berserk: instead, you realized where I was going, and decided to take the time to slow down and do it right. I have a feeling your place is going to work out really well in the end. (but I do have my doubts about this other one... viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20410& ) :) I'm looking forward to seeing your updated design. Let me know if you need help with that. - Stuart -

One question i have is: if the wall is not straight to the top - I guess it is not viable to use it as a side wall for the CR, is it?

Probably not. It depends on how bad it is, and if it is possible to fix it easily. Post some photos when you can, so we can see how bad it is. It might be possible to just fill in the missing bits. Or take it down and re-build it properly. If not, then you'll need to build an additional wall to be the "outer" leaf, but that would create a 3-leaf system, which leads to another set of issues that we'd have to deal with. It can still be done, but it complicates things a bit... - Stuart -