New studio build - never enough planning?!?

Hey guys, Right so whilst my brain is working overtime on designing a useable plan for my eventual studio place i thought i'd try and plan the construction as much as possible before the build starts mid January. Been reading through the forum and picked up a lot of information on the way (some registered - some just flew by!) but i also read that in general every situation is unique and should be dealt with in a base-to-base manner. At present i am still waiting to come up with the golden plan (a T shaped listed barn with two stories aint easy to picture in my head!) but have a few(load of :roll: ) questions that i would like to clear up so i can at least start sleeping at night again!! :P I think it will be easier to go through each section in the order i propose the studio to be built. Some background - this is a joint project between me and a mate of mine - he will be undertaking most of the labour as he is very skilled with wood/his hands (don't laugh i just KNOW that sounds bad!) We will start building in January and have a budget of 6000 pounds (roughly 10,500 dollars). We will be getting the materials mostly at trade prices (especially the timber) Our aim is to build a two purpose studio - the first is for commercial use and the second is as a base for producing my own artists under my label. Therefore - MAXIMUM isolation between rooms is essential. The building has to be soundproof as there are other businesses around the area (closest is about 60') and it has to be desinged for good acoustics (instruments such as piano, rhodes through to vibraphones and shakers will be recorded here) Comfort is quite high (both for clients and my artists spending up to 12 hours a day recording) as is a small reception area. Right so Number 1! EXISTING WALLS. I think this is the best place to start - the outside walls. As the building is listed we CANNOT touch change hammer bend the outside of the building (NOTE - this is already ringing bells in my head when it comes to AC) so to get it up to standard the work must be done from the inside. On closer inspection of the pictures i took - the bottom floor is brick (see StudioInsdL.jpg) with wooden cladding on the outside (see StudioOtsdF.jpg) and timber frame (4x2) with cladding for the first floor and the roof. The existing ceiling over the first floor is 6x2 with loose boards on top. Their are a couple of small windows in one of the brick walls (sorry no picture yet) but again these cant be removed filled ect. The floor is concrete (albeit very wonky concrete) and the doors are huge Z frame jobs. My thoughts of starting this would be (after moveing the old cars and bikes and hoovering up the spiders) to frame the brick walls with 4x2 at 24" OC then filling with 600mm Rockwool held into place with picture wire over the outside of the frame. the upper floors would have a plastic lining wrapped over the whole lot (holes in cladding plus restriction to not touch it!) to stop water coming in then packing the existing frame with Rockwool again (the rockwool would sit ontop of the plastic in the existing frame. Lastly would be to remove the loose floorboards from second floor (leaving a few for walking on!) tape of the floors ready for framing and then ready to begin the next stage NOTE - all the walls would now constitute the Outside wall of a two wall system (so from a mass-air-mass this would be the first 'mass') Only a couple of problems i can think arise from this - the small windows in the brick wall - would these need special tratment before the framing and insulation covered them over (maybe seal the edges with acoustic caulk?) and second - would the plastic waterproofing affect the isolation properties? (my line of thinking was that as long as the rubber is firmly against the outer wall it would act as an extra layer on that 'leaf' but im not sure whether the plastic would interfere in any way?) So hopefully i can get some feedback on this and then progress to floors! Like i said im loosing sleep!!!!! Cheers, Ed

Can you re-read the "don't even think about..." post at the top, use it as a check list (bold points) and expand on your description of the building enough so we could build a "carbon copy" if need be? Again, this is the level of info needed to NOT make a mess of things... Steve