A Tale of Rock and Mud

And now, onto insulation and drywall. I could really envision the room once the framing went up, but once the insulation went in, I really started to see what the space was going to feel like. I installed Roxul Safe and Sound in all the walls and cavities, including some double layers in between the floor joists above. Plus, Rockwool is flame retardant, moisture repellant, and fantastic at absorption. 

Since the ceiling was low to begin with (7' to the bottom of the joists), I opted to turn the ceiling into a giant acoustic cloud of sorts. I knew sheet rocking the ceiling would make it feel too low, and didn't want to hang acoustic clouds even lower than the ceiling already is. The solution? Stuff the ceiling with Roxul SnS, and then stretch Guilford of Maine fabric across that bad boy! (More on that later...)

Once the insulation was in, there was already a several db drop in noise within the room, and noise from the AC unit next to it was cut dramatically.

The diagonal wall with wood blocking for TV wall mount

And now for drywall! I went with 5/8" mold-resistant drywall (can you tell I absolutely did not want any moisture issues down here?) 

It begins!

When it came to taping and mudding this guy up, I had the assistance of my lovely wife Kat who was a total champ.

Sampling the product

Mudtacular

Sanding joint compound was not a good look on me

No, I didn't use two layers of drywall, and no I didn't use green glue, etc. etc. but there is good reason for that. I never intended for this studio to be completely isolated. Did I want some decent db reduction? Absolutely. Did I have the money to blow on extreme isolation measures? Absolutely not. To do that, I would have had to have a separate AC/heat feed, or build bulky air dampeners, lower the ceiling even more than it is, as well as several other things that would have cost prohibitive. I wanted to it to be reasonably quiet, where sound in and out would be minimized as much as possible. So far, it has been fantastic.

This now puts us at the end of July. I had lots of traveling to do for recording gigs in the spring so that put a damper in my construction workflow, but I really got back at it when summer started. Because there is no better way to spend a summer than covered in drywall dust in your basement.

Decisions, decisions...

Number 2 was the winner (and always was in my mind). I love the way that it shows off some really different shades in different light. Its a really warm blue that turned out perfectly. After painting the walls, I vacuumed every single inch of that floor, and laid down one more coat of paint of the floor to cover all the drywall scuffs and dust that embedded itself into the paint. 

Floor before

Floor after

Also, notice the support pole the the two pictures above? That used to look like this. We painted on two coats of a hammered metal finish from Minwax, and it looked instantly amazing. What had previously been a rusted, nasty metal pole, was turned into....a much nicer looking pole. Poles aren't too exciting, but if they were, this would take the cake. 


Next time on This Old Basement, we get to start putting some finishing touches on! Also, doors. Woo!

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