studioporn

among other things, today i'm working on the weird corners for the vocal booth and storage room. why are they weird? well, it all begins with the exterior walls. unfilled concrete block walls are already considered a mass-air-mass system, since the middle part of a concrete block of this size is mostly empty. this means i can't do a normal frame up against these walls -- that would introduce a 3-leaf system (mass-air-mass-air-mass), which would reduce the soundproofing ability. general wisdom in this situation is to attach the drywall directly to the concrete wall, thereby preserving the 2-leaf system. i'm trying to find a way to do this while at the same time dealing with the french drain lip around the perimeter and a need to maintain a reasonable amount of thermal insulation in this space.

while it's not ideal, my current plan is to use furring strips on the wall. this will help me create the smallest air cavity possible, while still allowing room to clear the drain lip and giving me space in which to put up foam insulation. the frame walls meeting up with the exterior walls form a weird corner, since the frames are coming in at an angle. so i have to rip a 2x4 at an angle in order to provide sufficient support and drywall-backing surface. here's an aerial view of one of these corners:

i haven't yet committed to using furring strips on the exterior walls. another idea i had today is based off the fact that i'll probably use 2 layers of 5/8" drywall on the exterior walls, like i am everywhere else. i might be able to get away with attaching the first layer directly to the concrete, cut to leave room for the drain lip. then the second layer of drywall would go all the way down to the floor. this is all speculative though, since the lip is just a wee bit deeper than 5/8", so i'll have to see if the plastic has enough play to compress a bit without cracking. i also need to think through thermal insulation issues -- a layer of 5/8" only has an R-value of 0.56, whereas foam insulation would provide an R-value of around 4 or 5.

the other issue i've had to deal with is how best to attach a ripped stud to an exterior wall. in a perfect world, studio walls would never even have to touch exterior walls, but dealing with this whole mass-air-mass thing with the concrete block walls makes that a bit hard to do while preserving the structural integrity of corners. initially i tried using my ramset to drive nails through the studs and into the wall. but this barely held and the stud came loose again with just the slightest agitation. i think this has to do with the ramset really being intended for doing perpendicular drives. next i thought about using tapcon screws, but here again i worried whether going through the concrete at an angle might weaken the connection. so i ended up going the liquid nails route. much as i hate to put things up using liquid nails (they're a complete pain in the ass to take back down at a later date), this really seemed to be the best way to attach these guys securely.