RFZ based control room in an A frame attic.

[Washington]

Good to see you about to get at the construction. Your dedication to acoustically designing the place has been admirable and quite interesting. Good luck !

[AnthonyRochester]

looks exciting

[Magickman]

Cheers!

-MM

[Syncamorea]

deleted

[Branko]

Good luck! Hope to see some pics soon.

[99zulu]

Well alright! Been waiting for this thread, glad to see things are finally underway.

[johndykstra]

Hey y'all,

super stoked on all the positive vibes. thank you.

We've got three solid days of work in. All collar ties in the control room are in, as is about 3/4 of the roof insulation and duravents. Still have the rest of the attic to complete this step, then onto the floor. Would have liked to get the floor done first, as it would have made knee wall construction considerably more easy. However, with the cold Wisconsin winter, coupled with 40 bags of insulation in the way, we sorta had to start reverse order of what I'd have liked. I've got a plan though to make the next step easier.

Still sorting through the photos, but don't really have time at that computer yet to get them up here.

Between work, practice, and construction... I need to make some spousal time. Speaking of which, back to that.

[johndykstra]

Photos wouldn't load. See the design thread linked above should you care to see the "before" shots

[johndykstra]

This is the left wall of the CR. The vertical wall you see will move outward about 2-3" and be the slat walls from the rendering. The bulk of the cavity will be bass trap TBD. Perhaps broadband, perhaps hangers, perhaps some amount of sealed boxes. We'll see what room measures tell us. There will be a second much shorter wall near the eve. This will represent the inner leaf drywall boundary. The cavity behind that will be a shared air space for roof line ventilation


This is a creepy ass photo we found in the eves.


We really lucked out in regards to demo. The walls were sheathed in some sort of cardboard/wood hybrid. Very easy to come down. Also, the linoleum on the floor was never attached.


Chimney. Water damage is quite old. There was a complete tear off on the roof a few years ago, and it's now dry as a bone.


Collar ties. More on these later


More treasures from a 100+ year old attic


Anyone know German?


A view of what will be the lounge.

[johndykstra]

Gathering supplies. We have an approx 180cu. ft. trailer. Two loads so far


Safety first!!!


Here's a psuedo visualization of the listening triangle. The actual front wall of the house will be insulated and drywalled. This will be the inner leaf. The tape wall you see parallel to that will be the soffit speaker mount wall.


Our first step was to install this secondary collar tie run at the peak. This will be the finish ceiling height.

[johndykstra]

Collar tie adjustment. THese will be exposed in the room. They had been originally installed willy nilly. No regard to level. We removed them (one at a time... hammered out with a block so as not to ding up), sanded them down, and reinstalled them... this time level. They are, on average, up just a touch from the previous location (1-2")


Skippin ahead, some insulation installed... but here is a view of the clean & level collar ties.


Same thing, however, you can see here, the last collar tie at the chimney. This is left in place temporarily... as this is the rear wall of the CR location. You really appreciate the difference in the wood though. We had previously considered replacing these 2x4's with new wood. 2x6's... but it was difficult to find wood of a similar quality, this being 100 year old, old growth forest wood. There were a few bowed pieces, and we relocated those to more inconspicuous spots. The first one, will be inside the soffit wall, and the last few of the room will be contained in the massive bass trap in the back top corner as seen in the rendering on post #1


This dormer window is located on the right wall. Approximately where the diffusor is on the rendering. This will be our exhaust vent for the portable AC we will be using to cool the space.

[johndykstra]

So as the last post would suggest, insulation is under way. Here, you can see one course of insulation that is cut to length representing where the shorter knee wall will be installed. We determined, after this first course, that a single roll, when cut in half, can exactly cover two rafter runs. From here on, we decided to leave the excess, as we can pull it out and insulate the knee wall with no cuts. Bonus. The duravents are installed only as far down as this point. There is not an eve vent for each cavity, so this small air space will allow every channel to benefit from the venting effect.


These pictures are not uploading in the specified order... Such is life. Here are the duravents installed up to the peak. We overlapped each section by one "nipple". This allowed the perfect run length with no cuts.


Interesting perspective above the collar ties. There will be a ceiling fan in the middle of the room, and track lighting will run the entire length, installed just above the collar ties on each side wall. Also, a large broadband bass trap will run the entire length of the room, with the exception of a small platform to hang the ceiling fan from. This will be mounted flush with the bass trap.


Fuel and motivation. This is a two man project. The rest of the band doesn't share the same labor of love that Chad and I do when it comes to construction.


The duravent, only installed as far down as the boundary knee wall's eventual location. If the vents went down further, the cavities where an eve vent are located would "hog" all of the ventilation.


The only aspect of the build thus far not completely executed by Chad & I. Know your limitations... that's what I always say. This is the back wall of the house, in what will be the lounge. Double 50 (whatever that means) run with #6 wire (whatever that means.)

[wolfger]

great project you got on the start here.
the german sign says:

Divine housblessing
where there is faith, there is love
where there is love, there is peace
where there is peace, there is blessing
where there is blessing, there is god
where there is god, there is no need (poverty)

greetings wolfger

[johndykstra]

Hey thanks man! Wow that was quick!

Cheers, thanks for watching,

John

[Magickman]

Hey John,

Just a suggestion: you may want to scale future pics down to a more reasonable size for those on slower computers, portable devices or less than broadband connections.

Just a thought.

Keep up the good work!

-MM

[johndykstra]

My first obstacle.


I spoke briefly in regards to the order being out of whack... in that I'd have liked to do the floor and slat walls first. Insulation is marginally in the way having to do this second... but not a huge deal. You can see here that the 2x4's are currently installed as a "butt joint". That's to say, it ends on the bottom of the joist, rather than next to it with all that extra surface contact. Not sure of the actual terms of these methods, but one should be able to gleen what I am talking about here. Based on current construction, I'm comfortable installing them in the same manner, however, I plan to utilize a 2x6 as a header for the slat walls. 2x6 only because of the angle. This will make drywalling easier, as I won't have to notch around the 2x4 wall... I can simply butt the drywall to the header and caulk it. I wonder, would a nailer strip attached to the back of the header between the joists be beneficial for attaching the drywall to?

[johndykstra]

Originally Posted by Magickman

scale future pics down to a more reasonable size

Thanks buddy.

What do you think would be a reasonable size? I don't want them getting too small...

[Magickman]

Originally Posted by johndykstra

Thanks buddy.

What do you think would be a reasonable size? I don't want them getting too small...

The size of your SU renderings seems good. Fills a 20"-24" monitor edge to edge but still loads reasonably quick.

Looking good!

-MM

[Syncamorea]

deleted

[johndykstra]

...

[npulsipher]

Any updates?

[johndykstra]

Took the day off work yesterday, and with Chad's help was able to put a very large dent in the construction of a half bath at my house. While this is not studio related per say, it goes along way in spousal relations. This should shortly yield more available time at the studio.

[johndykstra]

Control room side fully insulated

All old framing removed from lounge side

Collar ties for lounge adjusted.

We decided that instead of exposed collar ties in the lounge, we would instead raise the collar ties up 16" and use them as our ceiling. This will make entrance into the control room feel more grand. Plus, it afforded us to use the space above the collar ties for exhaust vent runs. Being a smoking lounge, this is to be needed. Rather than chop down our old collar ties, we installed new lumber. The old growth collar ties will accompany some new lumber, and be used to sister to the floor joist. This strengthening of our floor is probably not necessary. However, given the climate here, you never know when a huge snow storm will accompany strong winds...the house has faced this scenario many times over the last 100 years, but not with the added live load. Just being safe here.

Next step is to complete the roofline insulation for the lounge half.

Then onto flooring removal.

[duff_bdg]

Great job ! thumbsup

[AndyZippy]

Looks fantastic!

[johndykstra]

Fresh pictures.

nothing too exciting yet.

here are some shots after all of the old framing has been removed:

from the control room, looking past the chimney into the lounge



and two shots from the opposite direction


as many of you know, demo work can be really fun. Swinging big hammers and such... here's a shot of the down side of demo:

this is just a sampling of the really poorly executed "finish" application here previously. All these nails have to go so sheet rock will sit nicely



Looking towards the eventual lounge, we decided to move the collar ties up to 8'6", and use this as the finish ceiling height. This will allow for a lot of ceiling cavity space for ventilation, as well as making entrance into the control room feel more grand. We removed the old collar ties, and after cutting one or two down to their new length, decided we should use new lumber here... this saves us a number of longer lumber to use else where. Here are some shots of the new collar ties, as well as a comparison of the two heights... remember, the lower collar ties in the control room are going to be exposed:



With all of the demo and stud prep completed, it's on to insulating the lounge. For kicks, here's a couple of "action" shots of the process:



One hiccup. Along the back wall, just above the window, you may be able to make out an old electrical run. We didn't see this previously, as it was tucked just above the ceiling nailer for the old ceiling. It is run in front of the studs, rather than through them ... we don't know where this goes to yet, or whether it is active or not. Thus we had to stop insulating anywhere this thing is in interference. Not a big deal to figure out what's going on here, but we were tired anyway. More soon. Check over at the design thread later, more changes to the plan are coming.

[zijon]

looking great!

[johndykstra]

Figured some things out last night.

1- I learned attempting to salvage tongue & groove flooring is a PITA. I wanted nice long lengths, but with the feathered installation, this is proving difficult. I did manage to get up one really good length... a 16' board. However, that sucker is unwieldy. I'm just imagining the 30+' of work space it would require to send that monster through a table saw and planner. Decided I'm better off making strategic relief cuts across the boards, roughly every 8' or so depending on how many long boards that will provide. With my current plan for amplitude gratings on the lower half of the side walls, I have plenty of use for 2' boards down the road.

The new 4x8' OSB sub floor will be laid down temporarily, so that we can: Remove old knob and tube electrical for downstairs. Sister in additional 2x4's to the 2x6" floor joists for stiffening. (paying special attention to the joists that run underneath my speaker soffit wall. Lots of sisters and stringers going in here.) Run new Romex for downstairs and a floor outlet for the mixer/rack gear. Run audio snake's conduit for live room and tape machine to the mixer as well (need to look into long firewire cables to get the computer away from me). Insulate floor cavities. Permanently install sub floor. In that order.

2 - I learned it is possible to get a 4x8' sheet of OSB into the attic. I also learned that it isn't any kind of fun. We had to chop out the 'newel post' seen here:



This was anticipated. It will ultimately be replaced with a removable metal railing, so we can freely bring large pieces up and down.

We briefly entertained the idea of renting a scissor lift to get all the stock up the three flights. However, between the $600 daily rental, and our desire to lose our beer guts, we decided some good old fashion manual labor is in order. Besides, Neil was making his own bricks for cripe's sake... I can't let that punk out DIY me by that much

That's all for now. I'll snap some shots next time I'm out there.

John

[johndykstra]

Originally Posted by johndykstra

One hiccup. Along the back wall, just above the window, you may be able to make out an old electrical run. We didn't see this previously, as it was tucked just above the ceiling nailer for the old ceiling. It is run in front of the studs, rather than through them ... we don't know where this goes to yet, or whether it is active or not. Thus we had to stop insulating anywhere this thing is in interference. Not a big deal to figure out what's going on here, but we were tired anyway. More soon. Check over at the design thread later, more changes to the plan are coming.

Oh yeah. Learned something else too. Electric sensor pens are great. You turn it on, and hold it against wires, and it tells you if it's a live run. Simple right? Well... it works best when you have all the possible switches ON when you test. Chad... Turns out we cut the overhead light lead for his kitchen Good thing we're redoing all of that regardless....