plz give advice on converting a garage

[RefD]

i have a 2 car garage with 14 foot ceilings and am considering turning half of it into a music room.

the floor is, of course, concrete and is stable with no cracks.

thru one wall is a dining room and there's another wall at a right angle where one of the garage doors currently resides (i'd need to remove the door and turn it into a wall but haven't yet read up on that).

also, how would i go about floating a floor?

what do i need to do to isolate the electrical supply from the nearby fridge and deep freeze compressors?

any other info/advice/anecdotes related to this general topic are very welcome!

thx in advance!

[rhythm ranch]

thru one wall is a dining room and there's another wall at a right angle where one of the garage doors currently resides (i'd need to remove the door and turn it into a wall but haven't yet read up on that).

Don't replace the door, just build a wall inside it. You may even want to put a walk-through door (well sealed) into that wall for convenience. Doing this will maintain the look of the garage - causing less curiosity - and if you ever move, it's much easier to return the garage to it's original function.

how would i go about floating a floor?

Not sure if you really need to do this. Have you verified that you're getting a lot of sound transmission to the rest of the house through the floor? There are multiple ways to accomplish it, but basically you need some kind of "pucks" to isolate your floating floor from the concrete below.

See an article here and see "u-boats" here.

what do i need to do to isolate the electrical supply from the nearby fridge and deep freeze compressors?

If you want it done right, call an experienced electrician.

any other info/advice/anecdotes related to this general topic are very welcome!

Pick up a copy of Home Recording Studio: Build It Like The Pros by Rod Gervais and The Master Handbook of Acoustics by F. Alton Everest. Tons of good info and lots to think about before you start.

Also check out Ethan Winer's site. Not specifically on floating floors, but more good info on acoustics in general.

And Auralex's Acoustics 101 site.

[RefD]

i just got a second, more considered look at the garage and found a complete show-stopper in the form of where the attic stairs come down relative to where i would have to put in a wall.

GAH!

[JWL]

Good info.

There are really good, solid arguments for not floating your floor, given a good slab. Read this page on John Sayer's site to help you make a good decision there.

What I would do is make a nicely-shaped room, and build a room-within a room setup, using modular inside-out walls (John Sayers talks about this a lot).

Rod's book is really good....

[RefD]

i would have had to try to physically isolate the room somehow cos i am near the corner of a street that gets alot of rush hour traffic.

but it's all pretty much hypothetical now.

[wenzel.hellgren]

Feck! My garage has already been converted to a "living space", i'm trying to figure out how to organize the studio in there. I thought I had a good idea of where to put the desk, and then today just realized the freaking attic stairs come down right there. Arg!

The ideas are that I'd rather not have my back to the door, and I don't want the front of the speakers facing any living spaces as much as possible. i'd like to not be stuck in a corner either, so I can get some air behind the speakers.

I hate this. Before, I've always had no space so there was no question where stuff went, it went where it fit!

[JWL]

can you maybe post a drawing of the space you have to work with?

[RefD]

Feck! My garage has already been converted to a "living space", i'm trying to figure out how to organize the studio in there. I thought I had a good idea of where to put the desk, and then today just realized the freaking attic stairs come down right there. Arg!

The ideas are that I'd rather not have my back to the door, and I don't want the front of the speakers facing any living spaces as much as possible. i'd like to not be stuck in a corner either, so I can get some air behind the speakers.

I hate this. Before, I've always had no space so there was no question where stuff went, it went where it fit!

yah, positioning stuff within a tight space is a real hassle.

i PMed you (here or there, i forget which) about the two layouts you linked me to.

nice av, btw.

[wenzel.hellgren]

The dark grey "wall" isn't there really, that's just the dividing line between my studio and the washiner/dryer and the door to the house which is on the left if you were facing that way. I plan on putting like a curtain there to separate the spaces.



I put some shelves and shit in the recessed space. The white chunk on the top is the approximate area the attic ladder takes up when it's down. That's about the size and shape of my desk. The speakers go on the desk, like so :



I can't think of a better orientation for the desk at this point. Ideas?

[A.David.MacKinnon]

it's well worth doing if you've got an alright amount of space. I did it in a one and a half car garage. It's a great space to work and I do't drive the wife crazy. Toronto is blessed with back yard/laneway garages so I didn't have to worry about isolating it from the rest of the house. I only had to worry about soundproofing enough to not bug the neighbours.