This blog documents my studio build started back in 2009. I'm keeping this live for reference as it may help others who are thinking of taking on such a project.
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I had a good days work on Saturday this weekend and managed to get good deal of the drywall complete in the alcoves and the doorway walls. This whole area is actually quite fiddly and I had to take a lot of care when marking and cutting some pieces. There were some particularly awkward shapes to cut around the door itself. I was hoping to get all the wall layers done this weekend but in the end I was very happy to get the majority of the doorway area done. Once this is complete the remaining side walls will be really straight forward - so I have that to look forward to.
I would have probably got to start on the remaining side wall layers on Sunday if it wasn't for the fact that I decided to have a really big clear up. It was starting to get very messy and plasterboard dust just gets everywhere. I couldn't walk anywhere without leaving dust prints. After spending the morning with the family I spent the afternoon clearing up and it took ages.
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I did manage to get a fair bit done despite having to work on the assignment. Much of the same though - just plugging away with the layers of drywall. I completed three layers on the front wall and two layers on the back wall, inside the alcoves. Mother's day on Sunday as well so only limited time then.
A Year On...
If you have been following this diary you might have noticed I have just passed a big milestone!! Well it's actually just passed a year since starting the project. I perhaps thought I might have had it completed by now but I was under no illusion that it was going to be a quick job, especially with my limited time available. Anyway, I am pleased to have remained completely positive during the project and focused on the goal. It has been a tremendous learning experience and one which will, I'm sure, follow me into other projects. Although my build is by no means a mammoth job it still requires a lot of planning and effort to move it along. I have still been able to spend time with my family and in fact my daughter has helped sweep up now and again - though that often resulted in the creation of more mess :-).
There is still a fair bit to go but I can certainly see the light now and my efforts have, I hope, been worthwhile. With only the top two layers of plasterboard to be fitted I guess I can say that the essentially the room was complete within a year. Though now is the interesting stage and apart from building the doors, or certainly the internal door at the moment, I am about to find out really how good this space will be acoustically. Being a very small room is always going to prove difficult in this regard so this may well be the most critical and tricky stage in order to create a well balanced space - we'll have to see! In the meantime, the jobs still to do: Doors, Ventilation silencers, Floor (including routing for cables), Corner treatments, Room measurements, Additional room treatments? and general finishing. Oh and not forgetting building the desk amongst other things!
A few more images added though it looks much the same as one drywall layer: >>photos<<
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Not much to report this week only managed to get a bit of dry-walling done this weekend. We were at friends overnight on Friday and didn't get anything done on Saturday. I had a bit of time in the afternoon and got a couple of panels covered with the second layer. Not much but at least it's something.
I am just reaching the deadline on my first assignment for my OU course so I may well be spending next weekend on that rather than studio building! We'll see how I get on during the week I suppose. The assignment is 3 questions totalling 2000 words: Swahili Wedding Music, Modernism/Postmodernism and Court Patronage to Public Patronage. No additional photos this week.
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Upon inspection of the bowed stud upright (see earlier) I decided that it was not enough to worry about, probably only 3mm at most in the middle of the wall. What I did need to do, before drywalling the door frame area, was to collect all of my cabling to run from the airlock to the desk. You'll see from my earlier checklist what these are. I did make one change to this though. I hadn't decided what cable to use for the computer switching and then I came up with the following solution: I would run an additional CAT5 cable into a socket just like the others and attach RJ45s to the ends of my switching cables. This means that effectively the PC switching is done between two CAT5 sockets. This has the added advantage in that if later I decide to abandon the PC switching this way then I still have a spare CAT5. Before deciding this I checked into the PC switching/LED specification and whether CAT5 is suitable and it is well within this - so a great job all round. Actually this results in there being another spare CAT5 socket in the airlock area so I'm actually going to run another CAT5 between here and the desk. Actually this will be ideal for phone link - I had forgotten about having a phone in there!
Anyway, having sorted everything with the data/PC cabling I set about running this into the doorway stud-work. I worked this out to be 11 in total including an additional USB lead and the extra CAT5 - check the list earlier on this page. Basically I added a small piece of sloped timber to the sole plate near where the PC lives. This gives me a point to which I can clip each cable. Because the piece is curved it allows the cables to bend down progressively in the direction of the floor without any tight bends. From there they will run towards the desk in the floor. With all the cables nicely clipped down I rolled them up neatly and wrapped them in cling-film to protect them from dust and keep them together.
With the cables in situ I went about drywalling the doorway. All pretty straightforward actually and it's nice have the entire room lined and all of the mineral wool concealed. That took me till the end of Saturday.
OK, I spent Sunday morning caulking the joints and screws - as always quite a time consuming job though quite rewarding to fill all those gaps, crevices and screw-heads. I good mornings work and spent the rest of the day with the family. I just have a few bits of caulking to do on this layer - though I've only got one tube of caulk left out of the 12 box. Screwfix this week for this and a few bits and bobs.
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Apart from attaching a couple of small pieces of drywall in the alcoves, Saturday was spent conducting the electrical inspection of the circuits in the studio. we did a thorough inspection even checking the existing circuits in the garage itself. All went pretty well though there is an area that will need some attention in the future. When conducting the earth fault impedance test we were getting quite a high reading. Upon further inspection we determined that the garage is earthed via an earth rod driven into the ground between the garage and the studio. In this situation a different set of guidelines are used and essentially it meets with the current regulations. Though there is a guidance note that if the reading is above a certain amount the earth may need attention. No big deal as everything is essentially safe and I'll probably have a look at the earth rod later.
On Sunday I went about lining the rest of the alcoves. This was quite fiddly with a number of odd shaped pieces that needed to be cut. This took a little while but in the end I did manage to get the alcoves covered. I was hoping to get the door frame wall covered as well but this didn't quite happen. Though it may be for the best because I need to have a look at the stud wall around the door. The last upright I put into the wall was heavily bent and as a result there is a bow slightly into the airlock space. To ensure that the internal wall does not bow in I'm going to pack out the offending stud. It's not a major deal but it shouldn't take too long to make a spacer and blend it using a plane. So I think it is better for me to look at this on a clear day when I have time to tidy this up before dry-lining over the top. >>photos<<