Mystery Machine studios - 3-Room basement studio project

2.21.07 Update - More paint pics Got the accent walls base coat done today and threw a color onto the iso-booth walls as well. Moving right along... :)

3.7.07 Update - Floor materials, tile for BR and HVAC completion Quick update: The bamboo laminate arrived today and the stair treads arrived as well. Very exciting. I picked a slate tile for the bathroom and that's going to be installed tomorrow. Marmolium got installed in the new closet and was supposed to be installed in the utility room, but the hot water heater leaked and got the area a little wet, so that's been delayed. We'll hoping to get all of the marmolium and floors done by the end of next week and then the finish carpentry can get knocked out and then electrical finishes. Split system HVAC is up and running now and it's toasty downstairs and cooler upstairs. I love it. I'll make more updates as more interesting things happen. Thanks!

more pics of flooring:

Although I have seen your thread here a few times before (I may have even posted once or twice), and read through much of it, I may have missed a few things.... I am posting now because, like you have done, I would like to look into the possibilty of excavating a basement floor for the purpose of increasing headroom -- as well as a few other periperhal benefits (adding pex radiant heating in the slab; reinforcement; vapor barrier; etc...) So I figured you be a perfect person to ask some firsthand questions: Do you feel that overall the whole process was worth the result? May I ask how much it cost you, for how much square footage? Would you do it all over again? Were you not afraid of digging deeper into the water table? How much percent of the job would you say you did yourself? Did this keep costs down for you? thanx for any advice you have in this matter... K

infiniteposse wrote:

-Floor leveling and slab pouring, part one: In order to maintain the structural strength of the foundation walls, my contractor decided to pour the basement in 2 pours of 4 total sections. The first two sections that were poured a few days back were at a diagonal from one another which means that no single wall was ever left totally unsupported. The leveling went well. Below the slab they dropped in a vapour barrier and also started all of the trenching for the drainage and the plumbing upgrades that are happening simultaneously. Rebar for the floor and the 6" support curb was also installed pre-pour. 2 inspections for the rebar were needed to get the ok to pour over it. Evidently the special rebar that mounts into the actual foundation walls require a pricey "special" inspection that we had to do. All went well though and we got the green light. The pour went well and they spent the next few days prepping for cutting into the foundation walls for the egress windows and the larger opening in the rear of the house for the addition. The cutting began this morning and was mildly terrifying. Before I retreated upstairs to get away from the noise I heard the work guys talking about how the foundation walls were made of a rather sandy mix that has been known to cause nightmares in Portland. It looks like the cuts went well despite this and they're wrapping up as I type. Next steps: The remain two quadrants of the basement will be cleared out of the dirt that was dredged up for the last pour and prepped for their rebar, and pour. This pour will also knock out the remaining work for the new egress holes and the addition's foundation work. Hopefully in the next week and half or so we'll get on to more fun stuff like prepping for some framing or something. We shall see. My saving grace during this whole process has been not being too hung up on timelines, so I'm just trying to give it over and let it happen as it happens... Here's a boatload of pics for your viewing pleasure. Thanks!

Hey Lee I'm at the HVAC stage of my construction and I'm trying to figure out how to attach my flex duct to my ceiling. I was thinking about making a box out of duct board and it looks like thats what you did. How did you attach these to dry wall of your ceiling. Any more detail on how you did this would be appreciated. Lief

Hi Lee, Just wanted to know what thickness of underlay you used under your veneer floor ?? Cheers N Y M O

4.16.07 Updates Hi all- My apologies for dropping out for a while. We got a new dog and life's been a little hectic. I'll do my best to answer questions asked since my last post: Luftweg Do you feel that overall the whole process was worth the result? - -Yes. We got a little more headroom (2 inches or so), but it makes the space more comfy. Please also keep in mind though that the reason we didn't go down further was that the foundation walls ended almost as the depth of the old slab, just barely below... So structurally we couldn't go below that without major reinforcement work on the walls, ie: $$$$$. May I ask how much it cost you, for how much square footage? -I'd guess around an extra $10K or so for about 450 Sq feet, but I don't recall exactly. Much of this went into the demo, excavation and steel rebar that now attaches the slab to the walls for extra support of the entire structure. Would you do it all over again? - I think so, in regards to the slab repore. My slab was absolute garbage, so building on it and depending on it for support of the house was just creepy to me. I feel like I did it just as much for the purposes of making the house more solid as for making the studio space better. Were you not afraid of digging deeper into the water table? - When we dug down we installed a rather large drainage system that gives water a nice escape path, so no, I feel pretty good about water and the water table. I think we addressed it as well as humanly possible. We also had plenty of rain this winter and zero leakage after we dialed in the drain system, so I'm hopeful we did a solid job. How much percent of the job would you say you did yourself? Zero times zero. I am not gifted in the ways of power tools. Guitars and mics, yes. Drills, not so much:) I found an amazing contractor and he's done great work so far. Did this keep costs down for you? - Ha:) I wish. I'd love to be able to do much of this work like many folks on the site, but it'd just never get done. With a team of pro's onsite for over 6 months it's still going and going... Jester: The process was that they created a 2x6 soffit around when the flex duct was going to live. They temporarily used straps to keep the flex duct up and then, before the drywall install, they used plywood to seal up the soffit and compress the ducting into more of a uniform oval shape so that there wouldn't be any kinks in the ducting and air would flow smoothly. This was then dry-walled over when they did the ceiling. Let me know if this answers your question. I think there was a pic earlier in the thread (Img_920) that shows the soffit build early on. Nymo: What thickness of underlay you used under your veneer floor ??: It was a very thin underlay. I'm not sure of exact thickness, but it was nothing special or fancy; the standard stuff you'd use under a laminate floor install. It seems to be working great with the floors... Which brings us to.... Construction updates - Floor in, final paint, doors in, windows and trim alost done, most lights in I wasn't even aware I'd be gone for so long until I looked at the last pics. Much has happened and we're scheduled to get gear moved in Wed. of this week so I can start mixing a record I've been recording upstairs. My contractors also building me a new desk, so that'll get done in the next couple of days as well. I think I'm just going to let the pics speak for themselves. I promise to answer questions more promptly in the future! Thanks!

More pics:

That wood-finish is just superb! Come to think of it, it ALL looks good :)

Lee, One word my man...EXCELLENT!!! Man-O-MAN! That's lookin' good! Who did the accessory panel with the XLR inputs? Did you order it? Make it? If you made it, where did you get the black panel? Also, where did you get those sconce lights at? Do you remember the model#?? Thanx!

So, that's your new emergency egress window, eh? Opens into the new well you guys built/poured? Isn't that going to be a weak link in your isolation? :roll: I agree -- it looks so awesome that I'm now completely and utterly upset that I don't have similarly awesome pictures to show off yet. :evil: ;-) --Keith :mrgreen:

Wow man your studios looking great! I've been thinking of putting in bamboo floors myself. Do you know how well they hold up?

5.3.07 - Updates - Contractors finish main rooms and let me move in toys! Hi all- So I've been slammed the last few weeks getting into my space. There's still lots of odds and ends for the contractor to knock out, including the finished stairs, but he made a great push to get me into the space so I could get to some work. I've got a mixing project coming up and want to get things in order. I'll post some pics of the "just moving in" and getting traps roughly positioned and then more pics of the actual setup as it stands today. My tracking rig is still upstairs and setup for the current project I'm working on, but soon I'll break it down and load up the racks. I'm going to try and keep a somewhat mobile "essentials" rig so I could track else where when needed, and just keep the dynamics stuff racked up most of the time... Electrical concerns/Questions I've posted these kinds of questions in the Installation and Wiring forum here. If anyone has any electrical insight and could read over my questions and offer any advice there, I'd appreciate it very much! Quick, informal listening test: They just seals onto the doors yesterday so we just hopped downstairs a few minutes ago and locked up all of the doors between the booth and the live space and I banged on drums for a second. Pretty good isolation. There was definitely some low-freq. stuff coming through, probably around 100-200Hz or so, relatively low-Dbs. Certainly better than any situation in the same room with Gobo's by a mile... I'll do more proper testing in the near future with my meter. Responses to questions Jester Bamboo is a rather hard wood. Having said that, it going to get its share of dings me thinks, so carpets will be down where needed. So far, so good. sharward Yeah, the egress windows are the weak link for sure. One of the major goals for the project though was to create viable square footage for normal folks should I ever move. To remedy this we'll be making plugs for the windows that act as a seal that'll help a lot. I've got cool neighbors at the moment though, so it's not a huge worry. camistan Wall Sconces = Shaper Lighting - 632 series (vertical) /645 series (horizontal) Tracks = Light-o-leir - Basic-Advent line w/ 8420BK heads Ro Thanks:) That's it for now folks. Thanks for the support. I appreciate it.

Mo' pics.

Last pics

Man-O-Man! That's lookin' good Lee! Lookey at that stage model Fender Rhodes...that's one S-W-E-E-T instrument. And I'd be willing to bet, uh, SOMEONE plays guitar... :roll: Am I right??? Ha Ha! :lol: Great work Lee...

Lee, Very nice. My wife was looking over my shoulder and said cute dog Congrats Hope you figure out the HUM :( Tom

6.1.07 - Update - Ongoing electrical headaches and almost done with most other things... Hi all- Sorry for the slack updates. I'll shoot some new pics shortly and let you see how things are looking. Everything is up and running and I'm mixing and doing some tracking in the space. Things are going well and it's feeling comfy and cool downstairs. Electrical I am struggling with an electrical problem that I outline here: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... 1942#61942 Basically, it seems that my HVAC system is 240V and therefore has to be on the same curcuit as my audio equipment and lights. Therefore, I'm getting pulses in the lights (not of great concern) and occasional pops and clicks in the speakers/headphones and amps as well as showing up while tracking on occasion. Not cool. How do you guys working with a single service in your house deal with this? Has anyone added noise suppression to the heating/cooling circuit to clean up the potential noise/draw from the HVAC? If anyone has any advice on this topic it would be greatly appreciated. Recording/Acoustics/Performance: The space itself if coming together well. All traps are up and I've done some test tracking on the drums and things sound good. I'm getting a tight sound in the small "live" room with a slightly exagerated bass response from the low ceilings (despite many, many Realtraps) and actually a killer hall sound from my rear entryway's high ceilings. I dropped a small diaphram condensor out there and left the studio door open and got instant huge room sound. Mix to taste:) I also had luck leaving the doors open to the iso-booth as well and getting another cool and unique wet sound to add to the kit. All in all, all's well. Thanks for all of the help.

when is the exact date you are going to post those pics??I will be busy in next month., [SPAM SIGNATURE REMOVED BY MODERATOR]

So yeah, I kind of just started using the studio and never actually finished this up... All in all the build went really well and the space has worked out wonderfully. I've experienced one issue with water penetration caused by a hose dripping heavily next to the house. I've done several LP's down there so far and things are sounding really good. Drums are tracking surprisingly well. I had very low expectations for the drums being that the ceilings are so low, but the glut of Real Traps really seems to have paid off. It turns out the expanded rear entrance of the house makes an excellent reverb space as well. I'm typically throwing up a condenser in the space when tracking drums or almost anything else and then adding a bit of that for natural verb. Very effective. Here's a ton of newer pics:

great build! Was that a brown bullet mic on your shelf?

Thanks! I'm not sure which mic you're seeing on the shelf - one's kind of yuck green and the other is brown. The brown one with the handle on it is an old crystal mic. The greenish one is an old Western Electric 633 Salt shaker mic. Both are pretty darn cool on the right sources. Let me know if that answers your question. Thanks!

Wow, Lee, your room looks fantastic! Nice job.

Thanks very much! And thanks for your assistance on GS dialing in the monitoring setup. So much to learn...

too bad you used them ugly realtraps ;) no, kidding I love how they look. *(dunno how they "sound") The orange and black really work together!