studioporn

work's been demanding most of my time this week, so the only major studio update i have right now is "my bank account is getting smaller and smaller every day."

i went to hizzy depot yesterday to order my 3.5" unfaced insulation. everyone who carries standard 3.5" insulation carries the faced version, because no one but studio people have a need for the unfaced stuff. in order to insulate all the walls in the studio, it would cost me around $160 to get a bunch of rolled of the regular faced insulation. i fully expected to spend more for special-ordering the unfaced insulation.

but what i didn't expect was for the total to come to $1500. that's right, $1500. i'm being charged almost 10 times as much simply to get insulation which does not have a sheet of paper glued onto it. i spent about 45 minutes talking this over with the guy at the contractor desk, and he called owens-corning 3 times to make sure we had all the right numbers and everything. in the end, it became clear that 3.5" unfaced insulation really is such a rarely-asked-for thing that it does in fact cost nearly 10x as much as the normal faced insulation.

i know what you're going to say. "dude, just by the faced stuff and rip the paper off." believe me, this was the first thing i thought of. however, i have been unable to locate any testimonials from people who have successfully done this in a studio setting. which makes me a bit hesitant to try this, because if i do it and it proves to be problematic for whatever reason (residual glue effectively behaving like another leaf in the wall assembly, insulation ripping too much, insulation being too thin and not compressing enough, etc.), i most likely won't know there's a problem until after everything is built, at which point it would cost significantly more than $1500 to rectify. so i just decided to bite the bullet and fork over the money to at least have the peace of mind that the stuff i'm getting will definitely work.

meanwhile, back at the ranch, the HVAC guy has been doing some research regarding whole-house dehumidification and hasn't turned up much, at least not for carrier systems. the $9k system he spec'ed out for me does have a dehumidifier, but that's the only drawing point of that system. however, that $9k number includes the condensing unit, and he says that like the cheaper system i was tentatively going to go with, i can wait and replace the condensing unit later on in the spring. figuring at least $3.5k for the condensing unit, that brings the price of the hefty system down to $5.5k (or less). given that a central dehumidification system will cost me at least $1500 anyway, that price gap starts closing pretty rapidly. plus the infinity system lets you control the humidity from the t-stat, which is a huge bonus.

i've been going back and forth with regards to just how important dehumidification is. like i've mentioned before, during the summer humidity isn't too much of an issue since the A/C is by nature a dehumidifier. and during the winter months, you're adding heat without adding to the specific humidity, so that process is effectively a dehumidifier as well. but the real problem is around this time of year and in the spring, when the outside temperature is such that you don't run either the a/c or the heater all that much. currently, the living room humidity is 53%. i haven't been downstairs yet today, but i can guarantee it's at least 60%, which is at least 15% higher than needed for that space.

we're tentatively scheduled to do the studio ductwork sometime this week, and i'm going to call kevin on monday to review dehumidification options. at this point, i'm leaning towards biting the bullet and going with the hefty system. if nothing else, it will solve the dehumidification problem and will be slighlty quieter and more energy-efficient than the cheaper system.

Posted by Len at 03:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

i've turned my attention to the bathroom while i track down the remaining insulation for the studio and wait for the hvac stuff. initially i thought i could start drywalling it this weekend, but ran into a few snags...

i need to cut a 4" hole through the outside brick in order to vent the bathroom fan. initially i assumed i'd be able to get something for my hammer drill at home depot in the $30-50 range to help with this, but i soon discovered that home depot carries no core drills, and even if they did, a 4" one would run me close to $200. so i'm in the process of trying to track down a source for borrowing or renting such a beast.

hit another snag with the window. the plan all along has been to rip out the exisitng window and replace it with glass block. however, i keep completely forgetting about this part of the plan and the fact that i really need to put the glass block in before i start drywalling. the window's a little bit of an odd shape and will basically require me to use 6" x 6" block in order to fit the dimensions. however, all the major hardware stores in town only carry 8" x 8" blocks, so i'll have to obtain these pieces elsewhere.

i'm also second-guessing my drywall decisions for the bathroom. initially i was going to put up greenboard in the bathroom (greenboard is drywall which has been treated to better deal with moisture conditions in bathrooms), but then i read some stuff that seemed to indicate this wasn't really necessary. so i just got more regular 5/8" drywall instead. however, i was reading some more stuff tonight that leads me to believe i was right initially. better safe than sorry and all that stuff. so i'm gonna get me some greenboard this week and put that up instead. since i'll have to have it delivered, this will give me an excuse to have a couple of other big house items delivered. like a screen door! woohoo! we've been screen door deprived since about may.

in more positive bathroom news, we've been spending more time wandering home depot and lowes and looking at fixtures for the bathroom. i've also been trying to nail down the room colors. i think i've settled on using a kind of subdued violet for the base color and white (or perhaps something sandish but not too yellow) for the ceiling. we found a kick-ass medicine cabinet with a stainless steel frame which would go absolutely perfectly with this scheme. however, i'm having a bitch of a time finding a sink that would work with the cabinet, so i may have to let that one go. besides, i found a pedestal sink that we both like, and it's probably more productive to settle on a sink and then try and find a medicine cabinet that goes with it, rather than the other way around.

the quest for ceiling lights for the main studio room continues. i absolutely loathe 98% of lighting products on the market, so it's taking me a bit longer than i'd like to settle on something i'm happy with. the tricky thing continues to be the multi-faceted set of requirements: something that won't look too awkward when mounted onto a surface-mount junction box, has a contemporary design, doesn't hang down too far from the ceiling, and works with incandescents. i've found several lights that fit 2 or even 3 of those criteria, but nothing that fits all of them. if it's anything like some of the past lighting purchases i've been really happy with, i'll probably stumble across the right thing totally by accident.

Posted by Len at 12:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

building inspector came today and signed off on my work. even though i know my electricians are total code nazis, i'll probably also do an electrical inspection anyway just as a formality and to make sure my ass is covered.

other than the bulkheads, everything's ready for framing now. well, except for the fact that i noticed this morning that one of the doorways i framed is slightly misaligned and i'll have to correct it somehow--it's just enough to be problematic. i don't know how i missed that, since i've been pretty anal about checking level and plumb on all the frames i put up.

my resilient channel for the ceiling came in today, so the only outstanding material i need before drywalling is 3.5" unfaced insulation for all the walls. the local places only seem to carry faced insulation. faced insulation is problematic for several reasons. most importantly, the facing is flammable. this isn't a big deal for normal frames, but with my double frames, where the insulation won't be sealed in quite as well, this can be a problem. then there's the soundproofing effects of the facing. if you put the facing against the drywall, you don't get the full damping effect of the insulation, which is the whole reason for putting it against the drywall. it also can introduce weird resonant frequency problems inside the wall. and if you put the facing on the other side, you're creating what is essentially a faux leaf and changing mass-air-mass to mass-air-mass-air-mass.

i'm waiting to hear back from the HVAC guy. tentatively the installation will happen week after next. this will give me some time to track down the insulation, get things moving with the bathroom, and do more planning for wall colors and all that fun stuff.

this is so exciting. everything's finally starting to come together.

Posted by Len at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

lots of odds and ends to update on....

dave, disco, and tommy all came over last night to help me plow through the rest of the framing. unfortunately, everything that's left is kind of a pain in the ass, so we collectively spent a lot of time getting very little accomplished. woohoo!

the 1x3's i originally got from home depot to use as furring strips turned out to be warped in all sorts of ways, so i had to run back and get some more healthy-looking 1x4s. originally i was going to do furring on the exterior wall of the bathroom as well as the wall behind the sink/toilet, since there isn't room to frame either of those. however, we found that the surface of the latter wall was too irregular to work with, so i'm just going to attach drywall directly to the block. as for the exterior wall, we did 1x4s and attached them with liquid nails. surface was still a bit irregular and 1x4s have a tendency to bow, so dave supplemented the glue with nails in a few places. when i came through and put up the remaining furring strips, i ran 2x4s diagonally across the bathroom to better hold the pieces in place while they dry.

i had been scratching my head for days trying to figure out a way to build the bulkheads for the iso rooms such that i sacrifice as little as possible in the way of height and still have enough strength to support the weight of the drywall and all that good stuff. luckily tommy came over and offered a fresh perspective on the situation. kind of hard to explain what we did, but basically instead of making the bulkhead completely clear the beam (the beam being the reason the bulkheads are necessary in the first place), tommy suggested instead that we rest one end of the bulkhead 2x4s on the flange of the beam and then fasten the other end to studs. this means the bulkhead framing sits ever so slightly higher than the bottom of the beam, but that shouldn't be an issue since i'll be running resilient channel there anyway, which should give enough clearance past the beam overhang.

building inspector comes in the morning for the rough-in. theoretically i should be downstairs right now finishing up the remaining framing odds and ends, but i'm just going to get up early in the morning instead.

i got an HVAC quote today for about $6k, which is significantly more appealing than the $15k solution initially quoted for me. assuming a couple remaining details check out, i'll be moving ahead to schedule them.

i've been looking more closely at lighting options this week. i think i found fashionable wall sconces which would work well being mounted on surface-mount junction boxes. still looking for suitable incandescent ceiling lighting for the main studio.

i'm starting to plan out colors for the studio walls and all. i'm trying to stick with colors that evoke moods conducive to a good recording session. so far i've found a whole of color schemes i don't want to use--finding a color scheme that really speaks to me is turning out to be quite tricky.

2 more cheese posters for the lounge arrived today, bringing the grand total up to 13.

time to catch some z's before wrapping up the framing in the morning.

Posted by Len at 12:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ever since the drywall and stuff was delivered, the basement has been horribly cramped. i have a hauling company coming any minute now to get rid of all the bits of trash piling up in and around our house that are too big to put out with regular trash.

in that pile we have:

• concrete block


• wood scraps


• kitchen fan


• various other debris from the kitchen remodel and carpet installation upstairs


• pole from old electrical line coming into the house


• more concrete block


• remnants from the failed floor leveling


• insulation leftover from the old place that i won't be able to use


• more wood scraps


• plaster/lathe chunks


• more remants from the failed floor leveling


• an ice cream maker


• pallet leftover from the insulation delivery

electricians came yesterday to rough in the electrical for the studio and bathroom. luckily one of the guys has done electrical work for studios before, so he understands the soundproofing issues of surface vs. flush mounting of boxes and all that fun stuff. we basically decided to surface mount everything to minimize the openings in the drywall.

the only place this is causing a problem is with the light fixtures. i really wanted to get some slick-looking lighting going on in the rooms, but most of the good ones i found assume they'll be flush-mounted on the wall, and might look just a wee bit awkward if they have to be mounted on top of a surface-mounted junction box. for the vox booth and storage room, i'm going to have to do wall sconces, since the layout of the ceiling in that space makes it tricky to do decent downlighting. i picked up one candidate sconce, which is pretty nice but has a huge body that is expected to flush-mount on the wall. i'm going to have to go back and find something a bit smaller so it doesn't look as awkward protruding out from the wall.

i'm kind of bummed about the main studio lighting. i found these really slick flex-track low-voltage halogen lights that are so incredibly neat looking and are exactly the kind of thing that i was looking to do with the space. however, the electricians looked at the one i had bought and pointed out to me that the toroidal transformers that these things use tend to be noisy in terms of RFI and all, so i'm having to scrap that plan and go back to incandescent downlights. hopefully i'll be able to find fixtures that aren't too dull.

in other news, i sustained a rather nasty ankle twist whilst on vacation, so i've been walking around on a cane much of the time. this will slow me down a tad on the studio construction, but i'm going to work around it as best i can to keep things moving.

Posted by Len at 09:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

electrician called me back today. he's going to come out right after we get back in town in a week and do all the rough-in work. he's worked on our house several times and we've discussed the studio electrical needs several times, so hopefully there won't be any surprises.

once the electrical rough-in is done, the only two major remaining things before i can start drywalling everything are the ductwork and possibly a building rough-in inspection. i need to call the bureau of building inspection after the electrical is done to see if that's an issue with my permit or not.

Posted by Len at 08:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

heard back from the HVAC guy today. he's really worried that if we tap into the existing furnace and duct line for the studio, there'll be too much acoustic bleed between the studio and the rest of the house. he's proposing doing a completely separate system for the studio. this was my original plan for the studio and is by far the best in terms of soundproofing.

however.....

this is going to require an engineered solution. they quoted me $760 just to do the plans. once they do that, i'd be looking at somewhere around $10-15k to implement. aside from the fact that i don't have this kind of money right now, i'm just not sure i want to spend this much. i'm trying to quanitify where the point of diminishing returns is for me now to help figure out how best to proceed. the other big problem with doing an engineered solution like this is it'll affect the resale value of the house, so not only would i be dropping $15k on it, but i'd probably be taking $5k or something off the house value. several people have said to me, "they're just trying to take you for a ride," but the reality is that HVAC stuff for studios is incredibly complex, and solutions like this tend to use very non-standard equipment which comes with an added price tag.

one thing i've learned through this whole process is that you can drive yourself absolutely insane (and piss poor) trying to make everything absolutely perfectly soundproofed. especially in a space like mine where you have to deal with certain realities presented by the existing structure. for instance, if i could float the ceiling, i'd get much better isolation from upstairs. but i don't have the ceiling height to do that, so i'm doing the next best thing and using resilient channel.

i'm currently waiting for him to give me a quote for doing the original thing we discussed, which is to put in a new furnace, install a dehumidifier, and install/replace whatever ductwork needs to be done and treat it with insulation and proper sizing and all. i realize that this means there will be some noise bleed through the ductwork, but it's still way less bleed than if the ductwork weren't treated at all. what it will come down to is the "do i really want to pay $5k more for a few additional dB of sound isolation?" question.

Posted by Len at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

delivery came today. 80 sheets of 5/8" is truly a massive amount of drywall. mine was the last delivery of the day, so everything on the truck was for me:

normally they'll drop all deliveries right at the curb and i need to haul them up the driveway. but this dude was nice enough to bring stuff all the way up the driveway so it was just a few feet from the garage door.

jim and disco came and helped me move everything into the house. i'm sooo glad both of them came; this stuff proved to be a beast to get into the studio. we found the easiest way to do it was 2 sheets at a time, which meant 40 trips back and forth. plus the 12 rolls of insulation and the 7 doors. so everything's in the house now, although i'm not sure i'll be able to do anything before we go to toronto.

in other news, gotta call the HVAC dude in the morning. i'm praying he'll have some good news for me.

Posted by Len at 07:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

today i place the insulation/drywall/door order. well, most of the order, anyway. tomorrow they'll be delivering:

12 rolls of 8" ceiling insulation (~400 sq ft total)
7 doors (2 for garage entry, 2 for lounge entry, 1 vox booth, 1 storage room, 1 bathroom)
80 pcs 4x8 5/8" firecode drywall

the bastards didn't have unfaced 3.5" insulation for use in the walls, so i'll have to track that down separately. that's gonna be a lot of insulation--got around 800 sq ft of wall space to fill.

i also need to place my resilient channel order soon. i'll probably do that tomorrow so that it'll be in by the time we get back from toronto.

Posted by Len at 01:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

less-than-stellar morning today. on my way into work, i got pulled over by a cop because my vehicle registration is expired. i've been so busy getting moved in and working on the studio and all that this keeps completely slipping my mind. he was very nice and sympathetic to my cause though, especially since i have my drivers license as proof that i moved and my inspection is still valid, and doesn't follow the same schedule as my registration. he was like, "yeah, that's a pain in the ass to keep track of when they don't expire at the same time." so he had to write me up, but he told me to get my new registration today and plead not guilty; given my circumstances, he said the judge will almost certainly throw the ticket out.

but before that, i had an HVAC guy come over to look at the studio and see what we have to do for the ductwork. i explained that if possible, i'd like to avoid having to replace the furnace and condensing unit until next year, and just worry about the ductwork over the studio area. but after looking over the setup, it sounds like i'll have to do a more hard-core solution.

kevin's big concern, as is mine, is with mechanical noise and air noise passing into the studio, and studio noises passing through the rest of the house. his current thinking is that we might need to do sort of a 2-zone system so that the studio area ductwork is more isolated from the rest of the house. this may involve having to rip out and redo the main supply/return lines running down the middle of the basement.

one issue that needs to be resolved is that one of the supply lines dropping into the studio is right above the mix area. having any forced air around the mix position does weird things to the air in that space and can introduce phasing problems and mess up the stereo imaging and all. kevin's thought is to run a new line 2-3 joists back, and use the existing duct run to go straight into the storage room.

so all this ductwork was starting to add up, but i was like, "well, at least i might not have to replace the furnace right now." but i lose there too. our furnace has a flue vent and no fresh air intake, and this introduces a problem i hadn't even thought of until kevin brought it up: with the studio space being all sealed up, that's significantly less space from where oxygen can be pulled into the furnace area. this means that we could easily end up with negative air pressure around the furnace, and all the gasses being vented through the flue would get sucked back into the basement. which is bad.

i've also been really concerned about the humidity factor this time of year. humidity is much easier to control in the summer and winter, because evaporator coils are dehumidifiying by nature, and when heating stuff up in the winter, you're taking colder air, which can only hold so much moisture, and then heating it up to a higher temperature with the same absolute moisture content, but because the temperature is higher, the relative humidity is much lower.

during the spring and fall, things aren't running as much and as a result the humidity can really build up. the current plan is to put a new furnace in, with a fresh-air intake to maintain proper oxygen for the furnace and air pressure balance. said furnace would be quieter than our current one (bonus), would be variable-speed (bonus), more efficient (bonus), able to have a dehumidifier added on (bonus), and cost several thousand dollars (!bonus).

kevin's passing things off to his brother, who's the engineer at the company. he's going to go over stuff more closely and come back with final recommendations. but i suspect that unless he discovers some sort of loop hole, i'm looking at anywhere from $7k-9k to do the new furnace, ductwork, ductwork insulation, and all that other fun stuff. fortunately, i should be able to hold off on replacing the condensing unit until next summer, so that'll help save a few bucks this year.

Posted by Len at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

i'm kind of in a holding pattern right now while i wait for the HVAC and electrical peeps. HVAC peeps are coming on tuesday to look things over and give me an estimate. i'll probably have to wait a couple of weeks until we get back from toronto before getting the electricians in. i'm going to get a hauling service to come out this coming week and remove a bunch of shiznit from the basement so i can have some room to move around.

in the meantime, i'm trying to get my ducks in a row for various other studio odds and ends. i've been scoping out laminate flooring and have narrowed my choices down to about 4 or 5 laminate wood flooring models. i'm shooting for woods that are neither too light (maple) or too dark (cherry), and have a decent grain and pseudo-plank width.

i've also been spending lots of time on ebay looking for posters from cheesy bands to line the walls of the lounge. thusfar i have purchased posters for:

menudo
krokus
toni basil
donnie & marie osmond
taco
milli vanilli
stryper

i have bids in for posters from:

gary numan
tiffany

still looking for suitably cheesy posters from:

right said fred
gerardo
nelson
falco
meatloaf
hall and oats
captain and tennille

if anyone has any other cheesy bands to recommend, let me know.

i'm still shooting for getting drywall, insulation, and doors delivered this coming week. i'll have to order resilient channel separately, which may take a little while depending on which kind i end up getting. while there isn't a ton of drywall work i can do right now, i can do the exterior walls of the vox booth and storage room as well as some of the walls in the lounge while i wait on HVAC/electrical. i'm thinking of working on these chunks of drywall wednesday, thursday, and/or friday of this coming week. if any of yunz are interested in helping out, let me know. drywall's pretty fast-moving and very rewarding to put up -- it's the point where rooms really start to look like rooms.

Posted by Len at 05:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)