FEATURED STUDIO BUILD OUT
This project was started like most projects, with a shovel and a lot of dirt!
It is a testament to how much can be done on a zero budget.
This room began as an unfinished dirt crawl space under a home. The area had to be hand excavated to allow for enough overhead space for a ceiling and a floor to be built first.
The space was divided with a concrete foundation stem wall that I had no choice but to build over. I cruised all of the local building projects in our area to get as much scrap building materials as possible ( 2x4, 2x6, ect ) I assembled the floor sections ( 2x6 ) in pieces and brought them in separately to form the floor. I insulated the floor with R38 from a apartment tear out and then used the old industrial pad to isolate the floor then sheeted the result. I built and raised each set of the four ( 2x4 ) walls one at a time because of the uneven surface the stem wall created and left about 5" of air space between them and the exterior walls.
I sheeted the walls with OSB which was cheap and a fairly good media to work with if you use rubber isolating gasket nails to isolate it from the 2x4 studs and you can attach anything to it. On the final wall that entered into the house, I ran a basic pass-through electrical circuit from the existing box. Did the same for the existing light on a regular single pole switch. Built a noise box around the existing air duct that would be heat in the winter that could be closed with a lever.
Now that the basic room was done I had to come up with some kind of style that I could afford. Turns out that a zero budget affords practically no options of any kind. Undeterred, I started frequenting thrift shops and salvage yards. ( we have a great on in our Central Oregon area called Pakkit, a lifesaver! ) It was here that I found about 40 yards of this killer fabric that was thrown out from a furniture store because of a bad cut down the side. My design only needed 2 foot squares of it, so this was perfect! I needed a contrasting color to complete
The design and that was provided by drop cloths, yes, the burlap kind. Painted, they look great! I cut 2x2 squares of sound board that was left over from a construction project and wrapped the contrasting colors of fabric around them. I attached these to the walls with long chrome deck screws on all four sides and contrasted the seams between the squares with a box of wood flooring that was left over from a local flooring job. The four separate screws holding each square allowed me to alter the 'reflection angel' of each square so the room could be 'tuned' to further eliminate problem frequencies that occur in mostly square rooms. I punched a hole in the house bearing wall just between the studs to have line of sight to the other room and added a 60mm glass window from a department store display unit. This type of glass is extremely heavy and works wonders for studio isolation. The rest of the finish wood work came from a home remodel flooring job and that took care of the ceiling and the step. A finish piece of school cork board covered in the same fabric as the wall squares provided the final cover / redirect for the ceiling air duct and provides some cancellation to the overhead reflections as well.
This build out was featured in the December issue of Electronic Musician Magazine.
For more information on studio build outs and renovations contact us.
