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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OK, I set to work getting the bulkhead light installed. This involved simply taking another feed from the lighting junction box and running this through the stud-work. I added the isolator switch to the left of the fan controllers and connected everything up. The light itself is not secured in place yet as I intend to tinker with the position. I'll probably have it positioned slightly angled downward to light the required area.
I had also decided to run an additional CAT5 cable into the garage as an additional redundancy that I may put into use at some stage. This cable, along with the additional telephone cable feed into the house, results in two more CAT5 in total. This works quite neatly as there is enough space next to the original sockets for a second 2-way wall box. I fed both cables through neatly and clipped them down through the stud-work and terminated them into the new box.
Multicore feed:
So far the multicore was just looped through the stud-work centrally in the front wall. To neaten things up a bit I took a stud-work off-cut and cut a 19mm hole in one corner. This was then screwed into the stud-work corner with the multi-core through the hole.
Another small job to complete: the thru anchors used to secure the stud-work frame to the floor came with plain washers and a plain M10 nuts. As I won't be able to access these again once the drywall is in place I needed to ensure that the nuts won't loosen over time. I was considering using some stud-lock but I have some M10 nyloc type nuts so I put these on instead. This took a little while as the are a good 20 or so thru anchors in total. Another small job complete. This was also holding up completion of filling the stud-work with mineral wool.
I could now carry on filling the walls with mineral wool. This was just a matter of getting back to the routine and I now have 3 walls filled
One thing I have realised is that I could have routed the two 2.5mm cables for the studio ring in a much better way. Instead of running these between the brick wall and the frame I would have been better off routing it along the same route as the other circuits along a joist then down !!!! Oh well, you live and learn...but all is not lost as the cable length should still be OK as it will be covering the same distance only this time from the top down. This is definitely worth changing before going any further and will probably only take a couple of hours max. It will tidy up the cable routing in the back right corner as well leaving less cables exposed.
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Another thing I have realised is that I have no lighting inside the airlock area. I will certainly not need a permanent light here and the ideal would be a light triggered automatically and that provides enough light to see the computer and the studio switching (light switch & fan controller). I might be using the area to store some items as well. I've looked around at various options and I found a bulkhead light with a PIR built in. It doesn't look particularly pretty but it will be functional. This does mean that I'll need to add an additional isolator switch for the PIR which will fit neatly next to the fan control switches on the left hand side. I'll just need to take another feed from the lighting junction box and run it through the stud-work down to the switch and up to the bulkhead light itself. The light will fit in the top left corner as you go in to shine towards the right hand side where the computer etc. lives. I picked the light up from ScrewFix so I can install this at the weekend.
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I managed to get another job done this evening. Having already run one CAT5 cable from the studio into the house via a suspended conduit (see earlier post) I wanted to make use of the capacity in the conduit for a telephone cable. In the end I simply run an additional CAT5 cable as this can be used for telecoms anyway using CAT5 adaptors. This gives me maximum scope as well - I might want the additional CAT5 to the house in the future, you never know. Anyway, the job was pretty easy as I had plenty of loose cable inside the house to allow me to use it to pull the new cable from the loft through the conduit into the studio. I simply taped the new cable to the existing feed and pulled them both through the conduit into the studio. The new cable was then run through the stud-work parallel with the existing one and clipped down neatly. Luckily the holes I had drilled for the original CAT5 was big enough to accommodate the additional one.
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First thing first I put into use my new vac and spent a good couple of hours cleaning dust that had collected over the last few months. I know that I'm going to create a whole load more dust in the next few days but I felt better after giving the room a clean up. The vac works really well and has excellent suction - definitely a worthwhile addition to the workshop.
Once all cleaned up it was time to start filling the walls with mineral wool. There are a few spaces that I still need to do some jobs on still so I couldn't fill them just yet - you'll notice some gaps in the photos. Anyway generally I made good progress with this but I did ensure that I used most off-cuts as I went along. I didn't want to be left with loads of pieces at the end that I'd need to fit in and store while working. Instead after cutting each slab out of a pack of four I went out of my way to use as much of the off-cuts as I could. I takes a little longer to use the small bits but worth it in the long run. I won't be starting on the ceiling void just yet as there are a couple of jobs I need to finish.
One thing that's immediately obvious is the change of acoustics in the room now and also that the space is now starting to feel a bit more like a studio now. Another thing, it's nice to be doing a job that doesn't involve making any noise for once.
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Knowing that I'm going to be spending a bit of time cleaning up the the place before going too much further; lots of dust and stuff kicking around I needed to get myself a workshop vacuum cleaner. I have an old household one at the moment but it scares me a bit when I turn it on - it sounds like it's going to blow up when I turn it on!!! You know when you turn these things on the noise gradually builds up. Well this one does that but it never actually flattens off and sounds like it will just carry on until........BANG!! Besides it has little or no suction.
Anyway, I did some searches on ebay and found a Draper branded wet and dry vac that looked like it would fit the bill - for £60. I found it with a trader in my locality and managed to persuade my wife to get over to them to pick it up for me in the afternoon. I work about 60 miles from where I live so a little difficult for me and they weren't open on Saturday and I wanted to get cleaning up this weekend before starting to break open packs of Mineral Wool.