|
This is an issue that I myself could not solve for many years. I was sure I simply did not have a free room in the house that was of sufficient size to be dedicated to my stereo. What is most surprising is I actually did, but it was almost a dozen years before I even realized it was there, just waiting to be transformed. It was my attic.
Ironically, the thing that pushed it over the edge was an invasion of flying squirrels. Now, things getting into the house was never odd (it is a stone farmhouse built in 1799) but these things were everywhere. It turns out the biggest problem with the attic is that in the past some idiot put insulation between the rafters right against the roof, and this became the source of my new problem as these squirrels were living behind the insulation.
The following pics show the attic before any work, and the opening stages of removing this insulation. That was a real joy. It was about 114 degrees up there and I was in full cover alls and respiratory gear. I had to climb up on a ladder and remove hundreds of staples to free the insulation. Then I climbed down, and with a weapon in hand (usually a 5 iron) pulled the insulation down and out. As I did so, all manner of rodent feces, urine soaked unsulation, and a mixture of live and dead rodents would decend upon me. This is where the five iron came into play as it was all hand to hand combat. (just too close for BB gun useage) I had 36 bays to do, and each bay had to be done in 3 sections which means I went thru this dance 108 times before I was done. (to get at the lowest parts I had to ride on my stomach on a car creeper) Click pics for larger image.
After the insulation was removed, it had to be rolled up and tied, and then thrown out the window. (fastest route to the yard) They then had to be collected again and disposed of. Yes, I earned this room.
One interesting note is the duct system shown in pics one and two. They had to be removed as they were disgusting (and infested as well) but most interesting was a few feet down the line from the place shown in the second pic I found half a rack. In other words, I found one half of a rack of deer antlers, IN my heating duct. I told my kid it must have been from one of Santas reindeer...
Once all of this unpleasantness was done, it dawned on me that this previously unused space had possibilities.
Step Two - Design The Room
The attic is broken about 60-40 by the staircase coming up into it. I therefore decided to use the 60% part for my room. I had to figure out how to deal with some of the old supports, where to run the new heating duct, putting in insulating board which was not directly against the roof (and could not provide a home for rodents) but more importantly, I decided how the room would be laid out, where the gear and all other things would be, and so on. In this way I planned for every outlet, switch and light source I needed, and most importantly, the dedicated line running to the gear from the fuse box. Once this plan was devised, things moved quickly to implementation.
Step Three - Building The Room
Once the ceiling had been resolved and closed off with insulating board (leaving a good air gap), I began framing the room out. I had to buy a heavy duty pneumatic framing nailer to do this as the roof ties are so old I did not think they could stand having stud nails pounded into them with a hammer. Nail guns are so powerful, the nail is in before the beam knows what hit it. It made the job literally possible, but damn the big ones are lethal. The kick is so hard that once or twice is knocked my hand back off the stud, but it happens so fast that the front tip is still depressed, and my finger is still on the trigger.... you guessed it, it fires another nail, only this one comes out like a bullet. No, they didn't head towards me at first, but some of the riccochets were disconcerting. Reminded me of one of Churchills anecdotes during WWII about how Lord Mountbatten fired a pistol in a meeting at a block of Pykrete to demonstrate how tough it was and the riccochet nearly killed Air Marshall Portal.
Once that was done the plywood subfloor got laid. This was actually one of the easier jobs. Once done, the next step was running all the electrical wires. It is a job that is a much bigger pain than one would think and it took a lot longer to do than I thought it would. In fact I thought it would be one of the cake walk parts and I was very much mistaken. Electricians don't have it easy at all, and the work is hard and tiring on the hands.
However, next came the real creme de la creme. Drywall, taping and plastering. To insulate the room a bit, give the walls more body, and to keep the noise from reaching the rest of the house, I first put up special soundproofing fiberboard. Then came the drywall. Drywalling sucks at the best of times. In this case it was pure hell because every rafter came down inside the room (you can see this in the finished pics with the Alon speakers below) and every piece had to be hand scribed to fit between and around these beams, none of which were the same size or at the same level. This took for freaking ever. I was cutting it with my reciprocal saw which also got so sick of it it broke just at the very end. (I subsequently fixed it) Then between the taping, mudding etc etc... it took a long time and was simply dreary work.
When that was done little big odds and ends had to be taken care of, like repairing the windows, plastering and painting the stone chimney wall etc.. These ate up a lot of time as well and other work could not proceed until they were done. Once all of these issues had been resolved, the walls painted and everything ready to go, the laminate wood flooring got laid in. I still needed to do lots of things (make a door for the room, make doors for the crawl spaces, install the trim etc...) but at this point I essentially had a room.
One of the things I was not sure about however was what effect the ceiling slope and shape would have on acoustics. That's why in some of the grubbiest looking pictures with the room not even near done you can still see speakers. I was constantly listening and trying to evaluate the room. I had initially hoped putting a fancy textured wallpaper on the insulation board ceiling would do the trick. Sadly it did not. I eventually bought acoustic foam tiles and put them on, only to have the wallpaper come off and take the tiles with it. So then ALL of it had to be removed, (and of course not all of it came easily) and then the tiles had to be carefully removed from the paper without ruining them (and they were put on with liquid nails). Then the ceiling had to be painted white (three coats) and the tiles all glued back on again. When I did this the second time I decided to cut them in half to get a more even spread. It made twice as much work for me, but it looked better and sounded better.
Step Four - It's A Room, But Is It Home?
The first rule in doing something like this is don't let your wife see it, and most importantly DO NOT ask her advice. She got very unhappy when I put the tiles on the ceiling for instance, because it lost it's "ski lodge" charm. I also got far more input on wall color from everyone than I wanted. I tried white at first, but it simply didn't work. I think because of the way the ceiling comes down to the floor, with it all white there was no end, no boundary for the eye. So I went with a color blue my friend Tim had recently painted a room in his house in which I liked. It's sort of a perriwinkle, bright but not too bright, purplish but not purple, and I am happy with it.
As for lighting, down the room runs halogen lights on wire hangers which provide spotlight highlighting, and on each side of the couch are floor lamps that look a lot like old Quad loudspeakers, which seemed appropriate. Both run on seperate dimmer switches. I got all the lighting at IKEA. For ambiance and listening it's great, but for taking pictures and really needing to see, it is a little too dim up there.
THE REST WILL BE FINISHED SOON
|
