Things were progressing pretty well in the recording studio. I was rediscovering my chops, albeit with some frustration and fatigue, and making a point to not bite off more than I could chew while finding select areas to push myself a little and “go for it.” Spring transitioned into summer and it was high time to also make some progress on my drum room.

As I mentioned in Part 1, we had to have the garage finished before I could begin work framing the drum room. This meant having a contractor come in to insulate the walls and vaulted ceiling and then apply drywall, tape and mud. That they wouldn’t be able to begin until July was concerning to me as I had no idea how long it would take to build this room. Knowing I would have to do all of my cutting outside the garage in the driveway, including any future drywall, I was getting nervous about being able to wrap up basic construction before the end of September/early October when the rains here in the Pacific Northwest are all but certain to arrive. Keep in mind, I was trying to do all of this during evenings and weekends while holding down my day job as an Operations Manager. Do, do, do, duh-duh, do-do… Under Pressure!

I laid out the bottom sill boards on August 1. Prior to framing, while studying the garage floor, I noticed something along the foundation line where the wall meets the floor. Was that a slope? It might be common knowledge to a lot of homeowners, but for me, it was the first time I learned that garage floors are designed to gently slope away from the house. Upon the realization, it made perfect sense - this is to keep water away from the home. But if you didn’t know that, the overall perception of the garage floor is a flat, level surface beneath your feet. This would present my first obstacle: Level the bottom boards or cut gradually longer studs?

After some YouTube research, I decided to level the bottom boards by creating some “super shims.” You can learn how to do this here. Why not just use regular shims and raise the ends of the board at the low point you ask? Well, you’re probably not asking this but humor me. The idea for any room where you’re trying to isolate sound is to use as much mass as possible and make it as air-tight as possible. Think of sound like water in a tank. You can have a wonderfully made floor, ceiling, and exceptional walls but if there’s even a tiny hole, all the water will exit. Sound is the same. If air can get in and out, sound can get in and out too. So by creating super long shims that ran the length of the gap between a level board and the garage floor, then sealing it to the bottom frame board, my through walls (the walls running length-wise) would be level and I could quickly make all my wall stud cuts the same length. Only one end wall, the one closest to the garage door, would require the same treatment.

*Notice the long shim in the lower left hand corner glued to the bottom of the frame*

For the framing, I made the space between my wall studs 24” on center rather than the traditional 16” on center. This accomplished two things; cutting down on the amount of lumber needed and creating fewer transfer points for sound waves. Among the numerous things I learned during this project, sound likes rigid, solid objects like wall studs and ceiling joists. The fewer of them there are, the better. The pliable spaces in between are where sound tends to lose it’s energy.

After framing the walls relatively quick, the next step was to use a hammer drill and a special drill bit for drilling into concrete. This was so I could use specially coated lag bolts to secure the framed walls to the garage floor for added stability. You can see the heads of the blue bolts along the bottom in between the wall studs. This was time consuming but otherwise didn’t create too many challenges.

*The blue dots at the bottom of the stud bays are lag bolts securing the frame to the concrete*

Next was the ceiling rafters and I chose 2x6 beams since I had some old 2x6 scrap and this would cut down on the number of new pieces of 2x6 lumber I would have to purchase. I used much of the scrap from the cuts to create my noggins (spacers) that would go in between the joists at the ends and create a surface that the drywall could be secured to.

*2x6 ceiling joists - some new, some old*

I needed to figure out a way to power the room and initially thought I would run a new circuit off of the panel box. I had an electrician come out to provide me with an estimate and discovered that the cost to do so along with 2 - 3 outlets was going to be more than half the cost of the entire drum room project. I could have attempted to DIY this part but electrical work is not my strong suit. And anything that can kill you… Well, I figure that stuff is best left to the pros. Fortunately for me, my good friend Chris Marshall, a damn good musician in his own right and someone who has pulled me out of many home improvement jams, recommended an alternative. We would just run some heavy gauge extension cords off an existing circuit at a junction box, channel them in through one main outlet box on the outside of the structure and route them to 2 outlet boxes on the inside of the structure. None of what I would potentially be running in the room would be drawing a lot amps anyway so I didn’t need anything too fancy. From these outlet boxes I could then run some heavy duty power strips. I’d have to figure out a solution for lighting but that could be achieved with LED lamps that I could plug in to the strips. Once the outlet boxes were in place, I wrapped them with some fire-retardant putty. Not for the sake of protection but to help block sound. The outlet boxes represent another small but necessary hole in a design that is trying to avoid as little loss of mass as possible. The putty comes in sheets and is easy to use. It’s similar to the consistency of Play-Doh.

*Using outlet boxes for extension cords*

As we approached early September, I began turning my attention to the door. I had decided early on to construct my own door as opposed to buying a pre-made door kit because I had learned from my research that the door represented the number one area where most people failed when constructing a room to isolate sound. Much like the water tank analogy, the structure is only as good as its weakest link and the doorway represents the biggest break in an otherwise solid design. I had intended to build my walls using 4 layers of 5/8” thick drywall - 2 layers on the inside and 2 layers on the outside - with thick mineral wool insulation in between. By comparison, a normal room usually consists of only 1/2” drywall and only 1 layer inside and out with no insulation in the interior walls. Yet even with all that drywall and all that insulation, if my door wasn’t up to snuff, the rest of my structure might as well have been any other normal room.

But before I could get started, I got hit by an expected surprise. Because, clearly, I needed even more pressure.

Many older homes have the furnace located inside the house as opposed to the garage. Ours was no exception. Our furnace/air handler unit was located in our downstairs utility room across from the washer and dryer. The AC unit had a condensate pump that pumped the condensation through a line that shared the same drain as the washing machine drain hose. One day that condensate hose decided to somehow work it’s way free of the drain pipe in the wall, fall down behind the washer and dryer, and proceed to pump a slow but steady stream of water all over the floor. Because it was out of sight behind the washer and dryer, and because there was just enough slope in the floor to run the water toward the wall rather than toward the middle of the room, we had no idea this was going on nor for how long. Then one day while walking barefoot into the bonus room which is on the other side of the wall to the utility room, I noticed the carpet in the entry way to the room was soaked. Had something been spilled? I got down on the floor to investigate and the more I kept probing the carpet with my hand, the more I realized the affected area was much larger than the entryway. I pulled the couch out away from the wall and still it kept going. It had even soaked into some of the wood furniture and into the wall separating the room from the utility room. Even the faux-wood flooring in the hallway had been compromised. I went into the utility room thinking a pipe in the wall had cracked. Preparing for the worst, I pulled the washer and dryer away from the wall and then I saw the condensate line, lying on the floor, continuing to dribble water.

What more could go wrong?

Well, the state could literally catch on fire and that’s exactly what happened around the same time we tried to schedule a water remediation team. There were fires raging on both sides of the Cascades including one that was just miles away from our town, keeping us glued to the news checking wind patterns and the progress of efforts being made to contain the fire. The heat was terrible, the air quality extremely poor and the sky outside our home looked like we were living on Mars. So that was that and I temporarily shut down my project.

Eventually we were able to get a team out to our house to begin the lengthy process of opening an insurance claim, tearing up the flooring, opening up the walls, pulling up carpeting and then letting heavy duty air blowers do their job for the better part of a week.

Next came the task of putting our downstairs back together.

We went with a contractor recommended by the remediation company and he originally agreed to do the job - just before going on vacation for a week. Once he returned, he decided he had changed his mind and just like that, we were back to square one. This should have been an omen but instead, we went with a secondary recommendation from the remediation team and found a contractor that said he could have everything done in a few weeks. Unfortunately, our idea of a few weeks didn’t align with his idea of a few weeks and it wouldn’t be until after Thanksgiving that work would be completed, thanks in large part to his inability to correctly calculate how much flooring he would need - multiple times - and then leaks caused by improperly reinstalling the toilet that lead to a plumber having to come out to make repairs. Anyway, while work was ongoing throughout September, the fires eventually came under control, air quality improved, and it was time to distract myself from the headache that had become the downstairs of our house.

I returned to my DIY door and began by framing it with 2x4s around the perimeter of the door with a support piece through the middle. This was sandwiched by 2 pieces of MDF (medium-density fiberboard) of 1/2” and 3/4” thickness (!) and a layer of insulation in between. I then used Green Glue sealant - a type of noise reducing caulk that isn’t “glue” at all - to seal any gaps around the perimeter. The weight of the door was substantial and it was extremely difficult to move on my own. I began to worry if the hinges would hold or if it would begin sagging. The hinges I settled on were large, 10” gate hinges. Individually they were rated to hold the kind of weight I was dealing with and 3 of them ought to do the trick if my calculations were correct. I was also using a 4x4 post secured to a 2x4 stud for the doorway frame that the hinges would attach to rather than the traditional 2x4 frame secured to a 2x4 stud.

*Door made from 2x4 framing and MDF sheets*

It was the end of September by this point and I didn’t have any drywall up. Time to get cracking. I had Home Depot deliver the drywall to my driveway and that large stack would also serve as my cutting table. Man, is that really the right amount? Did I order too much? Let’s see… 4’x8’ sheets, 2 layers inside and out… Yep, I guess it is. Jeez. I called in a favor from Jim Leno and he came out to help me get this stuff up while we were still blessed with dry weather.

We started with the inside and the first layer went up pretty quick. But the second layer had to offset all of the seams of the first layer AND have a layer of Green Glue noise-proofing compound (different material than the caulk) applied to its back before being put in place to be screwed into the studs. There’s a lot of debate about Green Glue which, as I mentioned above, really isn’t a “glue.” It’s just the name of the product. It’s supposed to act as a damping compound that converts the mechanical energy from sound waves into small amounts of heat when sandwiched between two layers. From my perspective, I think it does help and tests show that it does provide a better STC (sound transmission class) rating than if just 2 layers of drywall had been used without Green Glue. But it’s also really expensive and to be used effectively, you have to use a LOT of this stuff. As in 2 tubes per 4’x8’ sheet of drywall! So you have to do a cost benefit analysis and ask if the return on investment is worth it. For me, it was already within my budget and it was worth it to block as many decibels as possible - even if only a few, particularly at the lower frequency range.

We got the inside competed and shortly after, the rains came in early October - right on schedule. I moved the remaining drywall inside the garage and leaned it up against the wall. THAT was a workout. To the people that move that stuff around by hand on a day to day basis… Much respect.

*Remaining drywall moved into the garage*

Time to move on to the insulation.

I used Owens Corning Thermafiber mineral wool insulation in 3” thickness for the walls and 5” thickness for the ceiling. While the rain fell outside, I had enough space to work inside the garage, stacking the insulation packages up on top of the drywall and still had just enough room to cut the insulation into the proper sizes. This work actually turned out to be pretty fun and went quickly, too. The bats are easy to stack in place in the stud bays and cutting the material is easily done with a serrated bread knife. All in all, much easier than dealing with standard fiberglass insulation.

*Mineral wool insulation. In the lower right is the door with hinges added and sealant.*

Around this same time, I began sealing all my seams with the same Green Glue sealant I mentioned before. I ran a bead along the perimeter of the room where the wall meets the floor and then covered all the seams between the drywall sheets in the interior of the room. This can cut down on sound loss considerably.

*Using Green Glue sealant to caulk the drywall seams*

Near the end of October, I turned my attention back to the door. I was anxious to get this step done but also dreading it at the same time. Everything about the door seemed “above my pay grade” and there was a lot that could go wrong. This was the most crucial part of the structure with the exception of the ventilation (an issue I had still yet to tackle and was not looking forward to.) Just moving it into place within the doorway took everything I had given the weight and size. I positioned some shims at the bottom of the doorway while I moved it a little this way, a little that way, trying to line things up so that I could make marks in the 4x4 post where I would drill holes for the lag bolts that would secure the hinges. Fortunately, my measurements were pretty darn accurate and after securing the door to the frame, I was pretty pleased with myself. The gap was so small all the way around that even without the door jam and rubber seals, you could still hear a “whoosh” sound when opening and closing the door. There was one area where the door rubbed a little on the frame but that was easily resolved with a little bit of planing and sanding.

*Door secured to frame with 10” gate hinges and lag bolts*

Getting the door secured was a big accomplishment and gave me confidence that I could really do this. With my batteries recharged, I moved on to the outer drywall.

I took advantage of any dry days that came my way and would put a table outside in the driveway where I could move a sheet of drywall to in order to make my cuts. Jim Leno was able to come back again and help with the “roof” which would have been near impossible to do on my own. Just like with the interior, the two layers of drywall would have a layer of Green Glue compound in between. Getting that second layer of drywall up on the roof with a coating of Green Glue on it and trying to move it into place was not easy. The remaining parts of the outside walls I covered myself, though it came with some difficulty. But finally, on November 6, I secured the final piece of drywall and thus completed the basic structure.

*The final piece of drywall, complete with Green Glue compound, to go on the outer wall*

There was plenty to be proud of so far and I had cleared some big hurdles. But there was still a lot of work to do and I was nowhere near finished. Additionally, the holidays were coming up, the downstairs of our house was still in disarray, I had some other projects around the house to tend to, and the band was moving into the final stages of our recording project and preparing for mixing. Meanwhile, things at work were heating up as I had to prepare to close down an office in Seattle while simultaneously preparing for an upcoming move of our Portland office - all on my own. Because, more pressure.

My practice room project would once again have to go on hiatus at least until the new year.

To be continued…

Building a practice room - Part 2

Building a practice room - Part 3

Building a practice room - Part 1