Studio construction
Egad! It's been over a year since my last public post. As I type this, it's quite late, which will help me be brief (normally quite unlike me), I hope.
We moved in here at the end of April, 1997, which is very nearly ten years ago, and started constructing a recording studio in the basement. We raised the ceiling of the main studio (essentially replacing 2x10 wooden joists with 4-inch steel C-beams), and ran out of steam.
Consequently, almost all recording since has been on location, and the equipment has occupied one and a half bedrooms of our house, sufficient for a editing/mixing/mastering room, but nothing else.
Thanks to the assistance of various friends (dhs, mycroft, and others who will be thanked later), marshaled by persis, the construction project was reactivated fairly recently.
The first priority has been to build a control room, for editing, mixing, and mastering, so that the bedrooms can be turned to other uses. The vocal booth and the main recording room will be finished later.
The framing of the control room has been finished. The electrical service to the house has been replaced (water damage) and a sub-panel has been installed for the studio. The electrician will be here tomorrow to finish the high-voltage wiring. The low-voltage lighting will be (at least partially) wired on Thursday, and the smoke detectors Friday. (Well, that's optimistic, but that's the sequence.) I hope to do the subfloor and the doors this week as well.
As soon as the above is finished and we can get a letter from a structural engineer, retroactively justifying the raised ceiling, we'll have the building and electrical inspectors in for the rough inspection. This should be quite soon, i.e., next week.
After that, sheet rock on walls and ceiling, the actual floor, windows, sound-proofing, completing the electrical work, another inspection, HVAC ducts, low-voltage audio and digital wiring, and then the move of the computers and audio equipment from the second floor to the zeroth. We hope this can be completed by the end of the month, but sometime in May for sure.
Boy is this expensive, even with most of the labor being done by friends.
After that, the bedroom having been freed, some of the immediate impetus will be gone. I hope the project does not stall again; the overall project will be only about a third done at that point, with several more rooms and the HVAC system to go. I have to produce overview plans of the completely finished project for the building inspector, and I'll post them here when they are done.
We moved in here at the end of April, 1997, which is very nearly ten years ago, and started constructing a recording studio in the basement. We raised the ceiling of the main studio (essentially replacing 2x10 wooden joists with 4-inch steel C-beams), and ran out of steam.
Consequently, almost all recording since has been on location, and the equipment has occupied one and a half bedrooms of our house, sufficient for a editing/mixing/mastering room, but nothing else.
Thanks to the assistance of various friends (dhs, mycroft, and others who will be thanked later), marshaled by persis, the construction project was reactivated fairly recently.
The first priority has been to build a control room, for editing, mixing, and mastering, so that the bedrooms can be turned to other uses. The vocal booth and the main recording room will be finished later.
The framing of the control room has been finished. The electrical service to the house has been replaced (water damage) and a sub-panel has been installed for the studio. The electrician will be here tomorrow to finish the high-voltage wiring. The low-voltage lighting will be (at least partially) wired on Thursday, and the smoke detectors Friday. (Well, that's optimistic, but that's the sequence.) I hope to do the subfloor and the doors this week as well.
As soon as the above is finished and we can get a letter from a structural engineer, retroactively justifying the raised ceiling, we'll have the building and electrical inspectors in for the rough inspection. This should be quite soon, i.e., next week.
After that, sheet rock on walls and ceiling, the actual floor, windows, sound-proofing, completing the electrical work, another inspection, HVAC ducts, low-voltage audio and digital wiring, and then the move of the computers and audio equipment from the second floor to the zeroth. We hope this can be completed by the end of the month, but sometime in May for sure.
Boy is this expensive, even with most of the labor being done by friends.
After that, the bedroom having been freed, some of the immediate impetus will be gone. I hope the project does not stall again; the overall project will be only about a third done at that point, with several more rooms and the HVAC system to go. I have to produce overview plans of the completely finished project for the building inspector, and I'll post them here when they are done.