Kathy's Barn Conversion!

You're a poet and you didn't even realize?!!! Amazing! :)

You're one who rhymes words and didn't know it?!!! Spectacular! :)

Kathy, what can I say but BRAVO - you've learned what I was pretty sure of from the beginning; you CAN do nearly anything you set your mind to. I'm glad you're over whatever tried to kick your butt, and from your site it's pretty durn apparent whose butt REALLY ended up getting kicked :D Ain't this fun??!? Congrats... Steve

Very nicely documented Kathy! Your site looks great. I look forward to seeing your progress continue. Be well-

knightfly wrote:

Kathy, what can I say but BRAVO - you've learned what I was pretty sure of from the beginning; you CAN do nearly anything you set your mind to. I'm glad you're over whatever tried to kick your butt, and from your site it's pretty durn apparent whose butt REALLY ended up getting kicked :D Ain't this fun??!? Congrats... Steve

Thanks so much, Steve.......and everyone else who responded. You've all made me feel great and all your support as well as your wisdom and teachings have been the real difference in the quality of my project. I can't put a price tag on the knowledge and guidance that this forum offers. I'm so grateful to have found it. Now........I have even more to tell you - recent stuff that just happened this past week. What an unexpected ordeal and story. I won't be updating my website with this until September but I've already got the pics and tale to tell for you guys......... However, it will have to wait just a bit as I'm exhausted at the moment (bought my first "ladies" chainsaw and cut down about 3 huge century old oak trees beside the barn today in an attempt to start to clear my land). Give me a day or two and I'll be back with an update! Stay tuned.....

Now it's chainsaws, huh? Damn, girl, if I happen to outlive my wife by some strange chance, are you up for a date? :lol: (Just kidding, doubt if I could ever replace her, don't think I'd even try) The fact that you're ABLE to tell the story seems like a good sign, hope I'm right - and if you need any advice on things to (and NOT to) do with a chain saw, I can help there too (have three of 'em, still alive with all extremeties intact :roll: ) Looking forward to the next installment... Steve

Kathy, you have inspired me to ask my buddy to borrow his nail gun. That's no lie. 8) --Keith :mrgreen:

You guys are too funny. :D Okay, here comes my latest story.....

Ok, here’s the latest drama: So, as most of you know I bought this house a year ago. We’ve already been thru one snowy winter and New Hampshire has also been hit with massive rain storms and flooding this past spring. But not to worry - the joists in the old unfinished ceiling of the barn always appeared dry as did the floor below. In fact, I was rather proud of my non-leaking structure. Do you see where this is headed? So, Saturday night two weekends ago we had some rain - a bit of a downpour but nothing compared to the slamming we got in the spring. Sunday morning I go into the barn for something and what do I see? You guessed it. A huge puddle of water just to the left of the drumriser. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Normally, I’m real good at documenting everything and taking pictures as we go but grabbing a camera at this moment never entered my mind as I saw the entire previous years work flash before my eyes. All I could do was hold my head in my hands and cry out, “No, no, no”. I looked directly up above the puddle but could not see a leak. However, the beam and crossbeams were saturated. I got up on the ladder but couldn’t see where it was coming in from as the ceiling boards didn’t show one particular hole - just some wet areas. I called my neighbor over who also got up to look and he couldn’t pinpoint any better than I could. But those saturated beams spoke volumes. He grabbed a ladder and went up on the outside roof. When he got up there he discovered that the barn structure had NOT been re-shingled or re-roofed as the house had been. It was 20 or 30 years old. Although he could not see a specific hole he did see many cracks in the shingles and a nail sticking up in the general area where the water seemed to be coming in. Having absolutely no budget left and never fathoming in the prospect of a new roof I thought I was in serious jeopardy of finishing my new studio. His first suggestion was to get a gallon of the liquid tar gunk and go over as many areas as possible to seal it up. But as luck would have it, he actually works at a place that makes this heavy duty roofing paper with adhesive backing. It’s about $75 a roll. He said he would bring me home 8 rolls for free if I wanted. He said it could be placed right over the existing shingles and since the roof is slanted towards the back of the property it wouldn’t even be seen. He then added that many porches, garages, and additions sometimes use this alone and never put shingles over it since this is 100% protection and shingles are more of a cosmetic touch. My fear of heights (being on a roof!), my complete lack of know-how, and the physical challenges involved dealing with 60lb rolls of roofing paper really raised the bar this time. I mean, come on.....at some point in time you just have to succumb to the fact that this is basically man’s work and I’m going to kill myself! But as it turns out, this wasn’t that time. Scott’s just not available right now so I asked my best female friend if she was up for giving me a hand. To my surprise, she had no fear of being on a roof and said we could do it no problem. With some instructions from my neighbor on how to cut, measure, and apply the roofing we figured out our own system and completed the job in less than 5 hours. Instead of hauling up the heavy rolls on the ladder, we rolled it out on the driveway and cut to length the strip we needed. We then rolled that back up and took it up the ladder. Half the weight. We then positioned it, temporarily secured it with rocks and peeled off one half of the adhesive width (it is manufactured so that the adhesive comes off half at a time from one end to the other). Once that laid down we folded it back on itself to expose the other half and pulled of the remaining adhesive. We continued on - overlapping each new strip on top of the last and securing the adhesive even more with roofing nails. I can now add roofer to my growing list of skills! We did it and I am so proud. And happy that I just didn’t try to patch one section. This winter I can feel positive that no moisture is coming inside. Below are the pics that go with the story. As a footnote, I need to say that there was a bit of a controversial ending to this story but before I tell the very end I thought I would just post this much along with the pics and see what happens.

Here's some pics of the old roof.

Here's the materials and job getting done!

P.S. By the way.......Here's a shot from the roof that shows where I dug the trench to put in the electrical conduit. It runs just to the left of the picnic table from the barn to just inside of the fence where the cellar bulkhead is (umbrella hides bulkhead door).

Hello Kathy, I have been following your construction with much interest. I too, am about to move from the commercial building I have been in for the past 7 years to a warehouse. I am going to begin construction on my 'dream studio' soon. I have watched this forum with intent interest to absorb as much information as I can. My hat is off to you Kathy, you are a real trooper! Do not let this current challenge defeat the amazing work you have completed so far. Please keep us updated, OK? I wish for you the BEST and look forward to a silver lining to your present situation! God Bless you and your Work.

Hello everyone! I haven't been reading or posting because I've been still too busy BUILDING!!! Since I redid the roof I've gone right on to building the vocal booth, drywalling, and painting (yes, we've painted!!). I'm almost DONE. Flooring is next and some molding and trim etc... I have tons of photos to update you and get you up to speed. But I can't post them right now until I get them organized and sized. The reason why I am here right now is for a quick answer if possible. I have built my opening in the vocal booth for a small window (14x18) and I went with free glass cut for me at a local glass shop. I have two panes and the accessories to mount them with trim and all etc, etc... My question is: Because this was free and easy for me I didn't get custom thick glass but just the standard 1/4 inch panes. I'm wondering if I can actually double them up and use FOUR of them (I'll go get two more) and that way each "piece" will be 1/2 inch. Is it a problem if I put two 1/4 panes together to make one thicker piece? I have Rod's book and read thru the window section but did not see anything that addressed this particular issue. So what do you think? 4 panes of glass doubled up to make a set of two? Thanks in advance for the reply and I promise I will be back with pictures to show you the amazing changes that have been made to my almost finished studio!

See this thread, which I think covers your question pretty well. Be prepared for disappointment. :( There are others, but I think this one's the most recent. --Keith :mrgreen:

Kathy, 1/4" glass is roughly the same density as 7/8" gypsum, so putting two separated panes of this would be just a bit less than having a narrow gap wall with 2 layers of 1/2" gyp on each side. IF you keep the air gap as wide as possible (by putting the glass on the OUTER surface of each side of your door) and then do a surface molding to hold the glass in place, that will be as good as you'll get with that thickness glass. If the door is a 1-3/4" exterior SOLID SLAB door, the window part would limit you to around STC 40, with the low end TL being around 25 dB. HTH... Steve

Keith and Steve, Thanks for the replies. I kinda figured that doubling up the glass would be a no go but I wanted to ask anyways. Steve, the glass window I'm talking about is NOT in the door. The door I have (which just went in today as a matter of fact - I really have to update you guys!) is a solid slab 1 and 3/4 inch monster as advised. I special ordered it from Lowe's prehung and my uncle put it in the vocal booth today. As far as the separate window goes, it is 14x18 and it sounds like my glass is just about going to match my construction now anyways. I built the booth using 4 layers of drywall - 2 layers on each side. The ceiling is also double drywalled and the roof of the booth has 2 layers of 3/4 inch plywood. I think my window cutout will be my weakest link but I think I'm going to be just fine for my purposes. By the way, it's amazing how much that door reduces sound. Just having it in right now and closing it actually reduces what I can hear of my iPod playing in the other part of the room - even though there is a huge 14x18 hole in the wall with no glass yet! So much to tell you guys and pictures to show. Coming soon.... I promise.

It is so wonderful to hear you are busy once again on your studio construction. I have been following your progress these past several months and am also in the process of building. I read these forums daily for guidance as well as reassurance in he planning stage. Construction begins this week - so all this information is very timely! I bout Rod Gervis' book and am building three rooms: a control room and two sound rooms (each one borders a long wall on either side of the control room). I plan to share pictures of the progress through to completion per the forum rules. I missed your posts a few months back. I do hope you are well once more and have rekindled the excitement of the building stage(s). I look forward to seeing your progress pics. :lol: Michael

Thanks for your post Michael. I appreciate your support. Your studio sounds like it is going to be nice and big. Three roms - wow! I'm looking forward to your pictures. I hope you have as much fun building it as I did. I wish mine hadn't taken so long but I didn't know a thing about construction and had very little help and that was a lot of the delay. You will probably finish yours faster I'm sure. Well, last night I painted the inside of the vocal booth a beautiful blue (the color is called Jazz). Today is the final painting - I will be doing touch up with white. Painting the trim moldings, covering the overspray from the other colors, etc.... You guys are not going to believe how much different the place looks.

You know what they say around here Kathy - if there's no pictures it didn't happen :wink: Looking forward to seeing your progress and congrats - it's gotta feel good!

Hi there Just been through the 17 pages ! What a work ! CLAP CLAP CLAP BRAVO ! I also did some work for my studio but it is nothing compared to you ! Bad for me I first did the studio and then heard about this fabulous forum ! But for now I am happy with my studio (even with the update of the ceiling, yes I did only the walls the first time ;-) I am now a father of a little boy named Téo and we (with the band) can play loud (acoustic drums, marshall and cos ;-) and the wife and the baby can sleep. We can hear a bit of noise but it is really silent compared to before ! If you want to take a look at my "story" it is on my site at http://www.pulseconcept.com then studio74 then construction ... I also got "intrusion of water" (sorry for my "bad" english) during the construction phase ... was believing it was coming from the floor but OUF it was from the wasch machine from the kitchen on the up floor ! and big up to KISS fans ;-) bye PHil

Kathy, New member here and just read through the posts and all I can say is CUDOS! ! ! ! ! This is an extremely agressive project for a contractor, let alone someone who has never done this type of work before. And you did a magnificiant job. I can't wait to see the final pictures. I've done much home improvement although I haven't built a studio yet. That's coming this fall when our new home is done. I'll have a 1500 square foot basement to finsh. That's why I'm starting my research now. Outstanding Job.....

Quite an inspiration, ain't she? 8)

Well, Kathy was definitely inspirational MONTHS ago, the last time she posted pictures..... :wink: :twisted: HINT HINT!!!!!

jwl wrote:

Well, Kathy was definitely inspirational MONTHS ago, the last time she posted pictures..... :wink: :twisted: HINT HINT!!!!!

Hi guys! Guess where I'm writing you from??? My newly built studio, of course. I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW......I have been a real a** about updating pictures. It's just been so hectic. Axe, thanks for the compliments and for reading thru all those pages! So, I just hung my guitars, got my midi going, etc....a few more pictures on the wall and a little bit more here and there of odds and ends and I'm officially done. But I AM sitting in here and it is 99% functional and WONDERFULLLLLL...... Real quick, I ran out of money on the budget (of course) and did not get the minisplit system yet. So how am I sitting in here when it is 11 degrees outside in New Hampshire? Well, while researching the splits I talked to a veteran HVAC guy who told me that the splits with backup heat strips are only 500 watts and not worth the extra (plus I discovered that those units all require 230 volts which I did not wire for - I needed to stay with the 110 volts and none of those have backup heat strips). He said if the unit did get too cold outside and the heat struggled many people just supplement the room with one of those sealed oil filled radiator looking things you can get at Walmart. He said those are 1500 watts alone and will fill in the gap if and when the minisplit heat would start to struggle in extremely cold temps. So, I went out and bought one to see what it would be like and if it would even do enough to allow me to move into this studio/barn this winter even BEFORE being able to afford the minisplit (I didn't want to move my gear in and find that I couldn't keep the place warm enough and damage anything) so I tested it out. It warms this place beautifully - sometimes I get too hot and am in shorts and a t-shirt while it is 10 degrees outside! I guess doublewalls and double drywall and a million inches of insulation (and so on) goes a long way. I moved my stuff in and all is well. My electric bill went up about $50 which is acceptable to me. The minisplit will go in this spring so that I don't boil this summer and it will be even nicer for winter next year having the proper heat as well. So, let me get working on those pictures for you. When I post them I'll start where I left off and go in stages. I'll see you soon!!