Loft conversion studio/office

[Luke W]

Someone who more into lighting than I am could probably give you a both a name and a gel code for that colour

I like the purple, in fact I've got a rather silly guitar amp that's remarkably well matched to those walls!

[James Perrett]

A friend of mine used to paint some of his gear in that colour. He had possibly the only purple tape recorder in the world...

[Eddy Deegan]

I just found out that I was wrong about the colour not having a name!

It's actually Hatter's Plush ...

[Drew Stephenson]

Very Lewis Carroll

[Martin Walker]

Especially since Eddy has been madly (hatter, geddit?) working on this studio for well over a year, and will shortly be disappearing down the rabbit hole of music making when construction is complete

Martin

[awjoe]

Unless, of course, by the studio completion date, he's so expert at and addicted to loft conversions that not only does it become his day job, but every time he sits down at a keyboard, it's so... unexciting.

[Eddy Deegan]

There will be a veritable tsunami of creative output, no worries on that front!

[Ben Asaro]

Looking great, Eddy! I'm jealous beyond measure!

[Eddy Deegan]

A significant development today. A couple of weeks ago I realised that the initial underlay I ordered wasn't going to meet the specs of the rest of the build. It is good for impact but certainly not for airborne noise.

Having waited over the holiday season for a subsequent order of floor underlay to arrive in the form of Soundmat 2 plus (3mm of mass-loaded vinyl atop 9mm of closed cell dense foam), this is now laid and tomorrow I'll be topping it with a layer of 11mm foam roll and commencing the installation of the laminate flooring.

The Soundmat was a bit of an investment but it's really nice stuff and has made a huge difference both in terms of impact and airborne noise transmission. My footsteps are silent and the noise leakage to downstairs is noticeably through the open doorway as opposed to the floor.

On the doorway front I've also got a 32Kg firedoor now, to which I'll be adding 22kg of plasterboard as an inner skin. It'll be installed as soon as the floor is done.

Pics and more details to come

[ManFromGlass]

When the earthquake hits I want to be in Eddy’s studio!

[Drew Stephenson]

So it's a surprise?
Or just for the view?

[Eddy Deegan]

Subsequent to adjusting my underfloor plan, the other day, this turned up:





This is 231Kg of ProSound SoundMat 2 Plus sheets each comprised of a 3mm loaded-vinyl surface atop 9mm closed cell foam. I'm getting a little tired of lugging heavy things up to the 3rd storey of the house but that at least marks the end of most of the worst!

There are thicker versions available but after the sound test we had on New Year's Eve I figured that they'd be overkill and in any case headroom is a bit of a consideration so the 12mm overhead seemed a sensible decision. After battoning, plasterboarding, flooring and skimming the final nominal headroom is fractionally under 6'6" which is a tad low but in practice not an issue given how soundproof the room is as a result. There will of course be some treatment but in terms of the ceiling this will mainly only be over the mixing area at one end of the room and I've no problem with that.

After the SoundMat installation I had very sore knees but the floor is pleasingly resilient and decidedly less dusty:



The black square thing on the wall at the end is a dartboard in a nice case with an integrated overhead light. It would be a crime not to have done, really. It's securely hung via screws into 25mm wall plugs which don't penetrate through the plasterboard

The SoundMat does what it says on the tin. Impact noise is significantly reduced and it's mitigated the flexibility of the floor enough to be worth the cost. I've canned the idea of the additional dense foam on top as it would reduce the height of the room by another cm, isn't necessary from an acoustic point of view and isn't a good material to lay laminate on.

So I'm now laying the laminate floor which is just under 30m² of a decent quality 12mm board at 14Kg per 1.19m². This is roughly 360Kg, bringing the mass of underlay + laminate to something around the 590Kg mark which I suspect is rather on the light side for anything vaguely commercial but works well enough in this domestic context.



At the time of writing I've gotten rather further than the pic and completed about 2/3 of the lay but have paused to make use of the unboarded area to cut up the final remaining pieces of plasterboard and OSB to the rough dimensions required to construct the storage/cupboard hatches and cover the door.

Tomorrow or Thursday I should be getting the 2x4 timber to build the hatch and door frames plus the 1x1 to construct the bass trap frames from.

In the meantime I've ordered another 6 bales of RW3 which will insulate the frames and provide the filling for the bass traps. I've also got the 15mm plasterboard cut to the exact dimensions of the door in preparation for fitting. I won't skim that, it'll be finished with some aesthetically suitable plywood, as will the hatches and cupboard doors.

Once the floor is down I'll be putting in some skirting board. The electricians are due at some random day in the near future (hopefully this week) to install the (surface mounted) ceiling lights, dado bar for the party wall (which will have 8 x dual sockets with some USB power outputs) and a handful of surface mounted sockets around the room also.

I need to start working out multicore and plug quantities soon; I don't want lots of separate jack cables cluttering up the place once all the synths are up here so I'll be making up custom looms to keep things as tidy as possible, but I think that's a subject for a future update!

More as it unfolds ...

[Watchmaker]

a massive undertaking...with a nice view!

[RichardT]

Looking brilliant, Eddy. I admire your tenacity. One thing I’ve learned from your experiences is that I’m NEVER going to undertake anything on this scale myself!

[Luke W]

Really nice work mate.

That laminate looks great, really liking the finish.

[Ben Asaro]

That's looking superb!

[Drew Stephenson]

Shaping up nicely!

[Eddy Deegan]

Thanks folks! Yes, it really is starting to come together now although there are a few fiddly things to go yet.

Later, once the studio is up and running fully, I'll be summing up with a number of thoughts, observations, lessons learned and related info. At present it's just a matter of continuing to put one foot in front of the other to get things to the point that equipment can start to be installed.

I'm pretty accurate when it comes to estimating the quantities of material to order for any given job but I'm terrible at predicting how long it'll take to do it. I really thought I'd be done in the first quarter of last year but looking back over everything to date I can't imagine how I thought I would at the time!

[Eddy Deegan]

On the home stretch now and there's nothing particularly complicated to do but there are quite a few simple things which have kept me busy this weekend and will fill the available time over next few days.

Stepping back in time slightly, here are a couple of overviews of the space after the SoundMat Pro was laid but before I started installing the laminate:





The images above show the five apertures that need to be filled, these being the door, the cupboard (over the stairs) next to the door, the storage door under the eaves and the two rectangular storage access hatches in the eaves.

I took a trip down to the local DIY store and came back with a bunch of 2-by-3 which I'm making the frames for the covers for all but the main door from, a load of splines which I'll be surrounding the plasterboard with (like a picture frame), skirting board, some doorknobs, a few tubes of adhesive and a number of garden-gate-style hinges.

I hung the door and attached the frame for the plasterboard to it:



This is 15mm timber to match the 15mm plasterboard that it contains. I cut and installed the plasterboard then used Siniat Smartmix filler to ensure there were no gaps between the plasterboard and the timber:



The door is a solid fire door, 45mm thick and weighs 32Kg. The plasterboard adds another 15mm and is backed with green glue resulting in a final solid construction that weighs 52Kg and is 6cm thick.

As it's so heavy I mounted it on four 100mm heavy duty hinges using proper screws as opposed to the cheap nasty ones that always get supplied with hardware.

It's also hung from the sturdiest side of the frame, which is heavily anchored internally to the main supporting column holding up the RSJ running the length of the ceiling.

Next I built the door for the eaves storage area. I framed it using the three-by-two; shown here resting loosely as I worked out the angles etc.



After screwing the frame together I backed it with 15mm acoustic plasterboard, packed it with RW3 and put in an internal piece of two-by-four, screwed and glued, to give me something extra solid to screw the long hinges into when it's hung:



The above image also shows the spline around the periphery into which I added the front plasterboard:



As I'll be doing with all of the doors, I've ensured no gaps using filler. It looks messy but is smooth and in any case it won't be visible once the final finish of plywood has been applied.

Below is the first storage hatch now lined with plywood and the frame for the hatch cover in the process of being put together. As before there is acoustic plasterboard on front and rear with RW3 in the middle. Here, I'm gluing in the blocks (also screwed) that will provide a good anchor for the knobs to be attached:



Nearly done; trimming the plasterboard to fit into the front recess made by the spline:



The resulting hatch albeit without any knobs or plywood on it yet:



Now filled and knobbed-out:



All hatches and doors will be covered with a final front of 5mm plywood which will be varnished to match the floor but as that won't be here until Tuesday I continued with the floor a bit:



I'll finish the floor tomorrow and install the skirting board. I'll be leaving a 2mm gap between the board and the floor which I'll seal with green glue acoustic sealant to prevent sound leakage down the sides.

Once the ply is here I can line remaining cupboard and hatch apertures and construct the doors/covers for them in the same manner as those done so far.

The plywood will extend over the gaps between doors/hatches and their frame and I'll be installing stop-frame with rubber seals for then to seat against firmly. More on that in a later update.

The electricians are coming to finish up on Wednesday, and the studio desk should be delivered at the same time. I ordered a Zaor Miza 88XL Flex:



... but I've had a rush of blood to the head and I'm considering asking them to change the order to a Miza X2 Flex as I think the extra length (it's about a foot longer) would be useful and I like the design a lot:



... I'm in two minds and going to sleep on it first though.

So the place looks a bit chaotic but the end of the construction phase is in sight nonetheless. I've been in touch with Max who will be providing valuable advice, and a visit, with regards to the treatment which will follow once gear is installed. I think installing the gear is likely to take a while, not least because in an effort to reduce cables I'm planning to make up a bunch of multicores to feed the audio interface but I'll keep the updates coming as it all unfolds.

Oh, I just remembered I've still got the LED light strips and their aluminium channels with diffusers to put around the top of the walls too. The door handle/lock is also likely to be 'fun' given the solidity and thickness of the door, plus there'll be various rubber seals and so forth.

All for future updates

[RichardT]

It’s exciting to see you’re in the home straight now, Eddy. I agree the M2 Flex looks a lot better.