After 4+ years, it's done!

[Studio Dweller]

It's been a long haul with construction being done on and off over the course of more than four years, but it's finally done! ...almost, but it's nearing the finish line.

My wife and I bought our house about five years ago and my father-in-law (a contractor) did the nicest thing anyone has done for me by generously helping me build a studio in the basement. I could not have done this without him and it pains me that he is not here today to see it finished. He died very unexpectedly at the age of 58 last year and I was only just able to get the remaining construction completed last month.

The space is divided between a control room, live room and a vocal booth. I don't have a wide enough lens to get a good shot of the vocal booth, but here are some photos of the other two rooms.

What I have left to do is get the rack wired and conceal the wiring as much as possible, wire up the panels in the live room and vocal booth and continue to tweak the acoustics with FuzzMeasure, but I'm very happy to finally be at this stage of the build.

This is the before picture. It's the basement just before we closed on the house (yikes). This view is looking at what is now the rear corner of the control room and I'm still not sure what that blue "mystery liquid" was on the table.



The after photos:

Control room




Live room



Many thanks to Glenn and Bryan at GiK Acoustics for their help with the acoustical treatments (that I purchased back in 2008), Rod Gervais for the wealth of great info in his book on building studios, the fine folks over at the johnlsayers.com forum and most of all to my father-in-law, Joe. Time to make some music!

[phybeau]

Sorry for your loss.





But congratulations on a beautiful studio!

[inlinenl]

I'm sorry for your loss, you'll only have a few real people close to you in your live .. it's a sad story when they die ... it's great of you mentioning him here ...

I hope you'll have many years of great music down there ... it looks very well detailed and made with love & care ..

[beks]

Just fantastic…

Maybe you should name one of the rooms after your late father in law (if not the whole studio).

[temetrepo]

Originally Posted by phybeau

Sorry for your loss.





But congratulations on a beautiful studio!

+1
looks great

[Studio Dweller]

Thanks very much for the nice comments. I really appreciate it.

[Tonio Ruiz]

beautiful space you have there, it looks very neat and warm and friendly

congrats. and I am happy for u that you finished your studio, I can relate to you cause my awesome father in law let me put my studio at some area in his house, and I can't thank him enough for helping me make my dream come true, I'm sorry for your loss

[mike-661]

Wow!,

I really love the vibe of your studio. Very sad to hear about the loss....

Good job for pulling through and finishing! and BEST of luck in your new space!

[iwobic]

looking wonderful! very good job!

[Jose Skertchly]

That's a lovely space!

[Studio Dweller]

Originally Posted by Tonio Ruiz

beautiful space you have there, it looks very neat and warm and friendly

congrats. and I am happy for u that you finished your studio, I can relate to you cause my awesome father in law let me put my studio at some area in his house, and I can't thank him enough for helping me make my dream come true, I'm sorry for your loss

Thanks very much, Tonio. Sounds you like have a great father-in-law there. I just checked out your photos and you have a really beautiful and classy looking studio. Great job. I see you have a similar air conditioning system (mine is a Mitsubishi). I remember cringing at the cost when I bought it, but I was so happy the first time I turned it on and heard how quiet is. I think it's supposed to be around 23 dB on the low setting. Money well spent and it's probably the only way I could have quiet heat and air conditioning down here without compromising the soundproofing.

Originally Posted by mike-661

Wow!,

I really love the vibe of your studio. Very sad to hear about the loss....

Good job for pulling through and finishing! and BEST of luck in your new space!

Sincere thanks, Mike. I really appreciate your comment. Being in a basement, there's not a whole lot of outside light getting in so I wanted to keep the color scheme bright and lively. I just need to get some decorative things in there and who knows, maybe even the requisite lava lamp.

I checked out your your amazing studio and WOW is very much the word for it. Really nicely done. That's some fantastic studio you have there and you must be extremely proud. Just beautiful. I hope you have great success with it.

Originally Posted by iwobic

looking wonderful! very good job!

Thanks! Much appreciated.

Originally Posted by Jose Skertchly

That's a lovely space!

Thank you, Jose! Cheers!

[scud133]

that's a hell of a transformation, great work!

[Studio Dweller]

Originally Posted by scud133

that's a hell of a transformation, great work!

And to think that I wasn't sure if anyone would be able to spot the differences between the before and after photos! Thanks!

[G Davis]

Very sorry for your loss. You guys did a great job! What are the dimensions of your space before and after?

[dpalasini]

Absolutely gorgeous.thumbsup I'm so jealous. Sure would love to see more pictures of the process.

[Studio Dweller]

Originally Posted by glee

Very sorry for your loss. You guys did a great job! What are the dimensions of your space before and after?

Thank you! Here's a floor plan - it's not entirely accurate, but it's close.

The wall that separates the control room from the live room and vocal booth is a double wall with two layers of Green Glued sheet rock on each side (not drawn to scale in the floor plan). The space is not that big, but considering that we live in a fairly small house, it's making pretty efficient use of the space. The area behind the wall near the couch is a workshop and there's a laundry room to the left at the base of the stairs. My wife is extremely cool, but there was no convincing her that we could do without the laundry room.

[Studio Dweller]

Originally Posted by dpalasini

Absolutely gorgeous.thumbsup I'm so jealous. Sure would love to see more pictures of the process.

Thank you very much. I have a bunch of photos starting from day one in 2006. I just need to organize them a bit and add some of the more recent ones. I'll try to post them soon. Here are a couple of early ones (we hadn't added the second wall assembly yet):

[cschuby]

Beautiful job!! Sorry about your father-in-law; it's hard to lose those close to us. Best of luck and enjoy your creation!!

[Colonel Blues]

I know how you can feel today… something like a "bitter joy"…
But Joe's Room is a nice place, really ! Plenty of success for you…

[idylldon]

Nice job and I'm sorry about your loss. Perhaps a nice framed photo of Joe needs to be hung in that space somewhere.

Cheers,
--
Don

[Glenn Kuras]

Wow this looks great. Can you email me pictures? Would love to put them on the GIK site.

[Guillermo]

Awesome place, enjoy it!!!

[Studio Dweller]

Thanks very much for all of the nice comments! I really appreciate it.

[Studio Dweller]

Originally Posted by Glenn Kuras

Wow this looks great. Can you email me pictures? Would love to put them on the GIK site.

I will definitely do that, Glenn. Thanks again for your help and I'll be in touch.

[exploded]

It's a really nice looking place! I'm jealous. It doesn't look like a basement studio at all. I'm sure it feels nice to be done with it. Although, is it ever really done?