Here comes the floor...

Floor finished and ready to be sealed and varnished...

(Sorry for the photo quality, lighting isn't great)

Walls are starting to take shape in the teaching room as well...

I managed to knock a glass of red wine over INTO my laptop so have been offline for a few days, cold turkey is no fun! That'll teach me to drink and hard-drive (groan).

It's been a mental few days of finishing bits off and moving gear to-and-fro. We opened up our first rehearsal room yesterday afternoon and so far people are very impressed and happy with the finished room.

First pic, Mark's little Metro packed to the gills with kit to go into the rehearsal room.

Here's the room empty of gear. (My little camera phone doesn't like the lighting!)

And the other end. Note the unfinished wall box, each rehearsal room will have 24 mic outs, headphone sockets and speaker in/outs. This will enable us to record in any room in the building (should we want to).

And the room with some gear in it. Ready for the first band to rehearse in.

Ahem..... cough....... Any progress Rich?.... Need pic fix. thumbsup

I'll get some more pics this evening. It's been a tough couple of weeks and we have been working all the hours god sends and even borrowed a few from satan too.

We've finally moved out of our old premises and are trying to settle into the new one. It's difficult when there's nothing but bills coming through your new mailbox and all we're trying to do is get back up to speed.

I have a 15 track rock-a-billy album to mix at the beginning of next week and I'll be doing that in the dining room of my house as the studio has yet to take any shape or form. I also have a 4 track E.P to record at the beginning of December and that will be done using one rehearsal room as the tracking room and the other as the control room. As usual, things are very much up in the air.

Better news is that I'm back online now as I have a new laptop thanks to the insurance company, woot. Red wine really is a killer (for laptops anyway).

Anyhoo, I'll get ya your pics if thats what you want heh

Thanks to everyone for their support, it is greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Rich

Cheers Rich... I love watching places come together... thumbsup

Ok, so some pics of the state of the place as of yesterday morning. I'll warn you now though they're not very exciting!

Here's that doorway we knocked out for the solo practice room, it has now been tidied up and is just waiting for some cement on the joins and a coat of paint.

Inside the solo practice room we are 'getting there', the other side of the breeze block wall we mutilated has been tidied up too.

Here's a shot taken looking over the two rehearsal rooms. The last of the insulation is going into the ceiling grids and we'll be putting the lid on the rooms next week.

Shot taken on the stairs looking down on the storage / air conditioning area. There's still a wall to go up there...

Our sparky has been in sorting out the trunking for the electrics and hooking up the air conditioners up to the fuse box.

And this was the state of rehearsal room 1 yesterday morning. It's now been fully painted, the ceiling has been given two coats. The electrical sockets and lighting have been installed ready to be hooked up on Sunday. Today the floor is going down. We're well on course to open this room for Tuesday evening.

There's a lot of air above the rehearsal rooms. What are you gonna do with that space?

The build is looking great. Congrats!

thumbsup

Also, what are you charging for the rehearsal rooms? Just want to get an idea what the market is like over there vs. what I charge.

Rich, I`ve just read through this thread. Your studio project is a major act of faith! And courage. I`m impressed. Stuff like this that makes men out of boys. Or.......

Anyway, big Congrats!

How many people are involved in the building process and in the ownership of the new place?

The space over the rehearsal rooms is going to be for 'light' storage at the moment as the rooms below are not load bearing.

We still have the ceiling height so that in the future if we wanted to put some steel braces across the building for another floor we could. At the moment though the need for that space and the budget are not there.

Rehearsal wise: At the moment we charge £7 per hour off peak and £9 per hour evenings and weekends. Any gear hired is £5 per item per session.

There is a need for rehearsal space in our area as the whole place is completely overbuilt meaning nowhere for bands to go and make noise. Then once we have the bands rehearsing with us we have a captive market for the recording studio. It's worked for the last 3 and a bit years, fingers crossed for the future.

Cheers,
Rich

What a perfect time to give props to those that have helped out:

The building process has involved just a few core people and our friends have kindly helped out when they can. My business partner Mark has been at the heart of the build from the start with me popping in here and there.

We've had lots of help from Mark's Dad Des, my Dad has helped out a bit too, our friend Craig has laboured for us for the last month or so. Big thanks go to the guys from the bands Jets Vs Sharks and Chillerton who've come down and got their hands dirty, our resident singing teacher Sarah has also donned her overalls and done her bit.

Ok this next bit is weird.

On the 'professional' helpers side we've had our quantity surveyor Steve, our electrician Steve and also our local building control agent Steve who have been very nice and helpful (maybe thats because we paid them?)

No they're not all one person, yes they're all called Steve.

Other pros to thank (jeez this is getting like an oscar acceptance speech or something), the 'stair man' Paul who built and fitted our new wider stair case and our solicitor Miles who worked his arse off for us for months and only charged us what he quoted initially. A TRUE GENT.

Phew, I'm bound to have forgotten someone.

Ownership? Mark and I are the proud owners of the studio. Good eh? heh

Thanks for the Oscar speach, Rich. But you forgot your mam and God. tutt

Seriously, it`s good to get some flesh to the characters that the readers of this thread imagine must be there, somewhere, some place.
Some of us readers may do something similar and will identify with your project. So it`s good to get a realistic idea of the manpower involved. I may move into a barn next summer.

Quick update and some terrible photography. We've had two rehearsal rooms open for a week now and business has been booming! (Thank god!)

Currently we're focusing on finishing the downstairs area before we undertake the big job of the main studio upstairs.

The downstairs corridor is starting to take shape, the aircon/storage room now has a wall and a door but no ceiling as yet.

And the studio office is being framed out under the stairs...

Sorry for the lack of updates, have been finding it harder and harder to get the time to sit in front the laptop. Here's a couple of new pics.

We've setup a temporary control room in what will eventually be the teaching room. We've got lots of projects coming through so we can't turn down the work.

Meanwhile upstairs the real studio will be constructed. Here's the temp control room:

Our very own tower of power:

Finally, shot of me looking a bit smoked after long day of soldering:

Lookin good there Rich "unibomber" T

Cool, congrats Rich T!!
What are you going to teach?
Cheers.........Joaquin.

Keep up the good work , Your soldering has just begun !
Why the ear plugs...??
I cant wait to see pics. of the upstairs control room.

Steve

We have a singing / vocal teacher who brings her students in three days a week.
We're trying to get some other teachers as well. It'll be a good way to introduce the studio to newbies and obviously we get some rent from the teachers heh