Need Studio Design Advice Before Purchasing Home

Hello everyone, My wife and I are seriously considering moving into a house with a basement. I have mixed emotions because I love my log home back in the woods but I don't have a basement and I currently have a small, untreated bedroom studio that leaves a lot of room for upgrade. With that much property and even a pole barn standing, I could build a very nice place. However, we have to make some hard decisions due to the effects the automotive industry here in Michigan has had on our income. I must scale back some. The good news is that I can now look for a house with a basement to build a better studio in! My question (for now) is what to look for in a house/basement so I don't buy a house only to find out, after the fact, that I should have looked for something else? I'm 95% certain that the price range and area we are looking in will have 8' basement ceiling height, not 10'. The house will probably be in the 2000 sq. ft range but I'm not sure about the exact size of the basement. Here's what I plan to do in this studio: 1) My primary use is to record my own music as well as give guitar lessons. I may have clients from time to time but that's not my main objective. 2) I'm thinking it would be great 2 have 2 rooms. One control room and the other a live room. 3) The live room should be large enough to record drums. 4) The vast majority of the use for the live room will be for a guitar amp. I would like to isolate myself from my amp and be able to record my guitar while I'm in the control room listening at a nice level while my amp is blasting out (loud) in the live room. 5) The other use for the live room would be mostly acoustic guitar and vocals. 6) Most of the time I will be the only one in the studio. I could see times where there might be 5-7 people in the control room. Just guessing. 7) I hope to create a live room that will allow me to record my guitar while the family is upstairs doing their thing. In other words, it would be great to silence my guitar (or come very close). I don't want to use an iso cabinet. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT TO ME 8) When drums are being recorded, I would not be worried about keeping things quite upstairs. 9) I would like to keep the size to a minimum while achieving the results above with quality. I am hoping not to use the entire basement. Perhaps 50-75% Less if feasible. 10) I need to keep costs as low as possible, but achieving quality results is important. I think this covers quite a bit. Any help I can get to get me thinking in the right direction would be appreciated. Thanks everyone. Jeff

greetings: well, i'm sad to here that you are considering moving due to the auto industry status... but happy that you will have a chance to build a studio :) (way to see the bright side~!) as you've probably seen already, there are plenty of basement studios here on the forum (mine included). so there should be a great deal of info for you to consider. here's a few of my humble suggestions. I would take some of the golden ratio's and a tape measure with you when house hunting. if you can find a basement that has two of the three measures you need, thats a good start. L.W. Sepmeyer Height Width Length 1.00 1.14 1.39 1.00 1.28 1.54 1.00 1.60 2.33 M.M. Louden Height Width Length 1.00 1.40 1.90 1.00 1.30 1.90 1.00 1.50 2.10 also, consider the ceiling obstacles, space is fine, but make sure it's useable space. ie: support beams, water pipes, hvac lines... anything that can or may need to be moved. cheers kevin