John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

Progress, ppl. Progress!!

Finally, the plan is set in motion. We just kinda finished phase 1 of this monster: clearing out the studio RC and rec.room annex rehearsal room on the floor 2 and cleaning out the other 2 floors to create space.

We threw away almost anything we haven't used for the last couple 'o months. Major clean-up!

Next up phase 2: demolition!
But first....

PIX to backup my words
Here's a before and after picture (the before pic was shot a few months agon) of floor 2, the now empty RC and finally the garbage we collected.

Right...

Phase 2: Demotime!
As the title states, it's demolition time. Floor 2 will be totally cleared. This is where a rehearsal space annex tracking room and CR was located. As the following pix will show.
We've removed the CR, some GB, ceiling, wood in front of windows and some misc stuff. Next up, the existing (floating) floor and rest of inner walls. Now, who's gonna clean up after me.... Darn, it always amazes me how much Garbage I end up...

Pix:
- 7: removing existing GB
- 6: some junk
- 8 + 9: There's light on the other side. The wood that holds the windows is totally rotten and will be closed with clay bricks.
- 12+13: The wall between TR and CR is down, baby!

Demolition day 2
Last week we started with demolition of the 2nd floor, today we continued. Goals for today where to clean up the mess from last week (shipping wood, insulation and other stuff to the junkyard), break some more walls/ceilings and clean up a bit.

Some pix for proof:
1. Some more demo
2. The remaining junk from last week's demo
3. Moving that junk by car, to the dump...
4. Clean up
5. We're getting closer, junk's mostly gone and all walls and ceiling being stripped.

Next week, demolition of existing gypsumblock walls and shipping them to the dump.

cheers.

Another fine little demo
Day 3

Pfew, it's summertime in the Netherlands which makes demolition a pretty swetty job. It's about 27 degrees celcius here, and we're demoing the top floor with flat roof.... Imagen the heat inside

Ahwell, we cleaned up the place from last time and started removing the first portion of the existing inner wall which was made 15 years ago. It's made of Cellular concrete with a cavity filled with mattras foam (!)

We only managed to break down eastern wall (left on the first picture)
Next friday we'll remove all the this garbage (to the junkyard) and start breaking down the south and west walls.

Also removed the "studio" control-room floating floor.

Here's proof:

1 - Photo taken at entrance level (north), at the left is the, now, removed wall. The middle is the garbage from that.
2 - Same, Same but different (angle)
3 - The Cellular concrete residu
4 - This is what was used for insulation in air cavity
5 - Shot from the back (south)

Another Day in hell
Blood, sweat and heavy stuff. We did some more demolition and getting closer to a completely stripped room. Wow, the reverb just keeps on growing here

We stripped the remaining Cellular concrete wall partitions (south and west wall). More garbage, man where does it come from!

Here's again some pix

1 - The yellow foam from in between the exterior wall and, now removed, inner wall. WHAT were those guys thinking when they build that wall (bout 15 years ago) [oh well, I'd prolly do the same back then. .. I too was ignorant
2 - Bringing all the stuff to the garbage disposal
3 - Yup, a disposed wall
4 - Removing some more wood
5 - Now, THAT's what a stripped room looks like

Next friday will prolly be the last run concerning demolition. We've still got to remove the existing "floating" (not really) floor. That floor is nothing more than a raised floor. No spring whatsoever.... man, am I glad I found this forum.

cheers, untill next week
ro

looks good ro, didn't know you had to demolish to that extent to get things going.. got scared when I saw 20070615_04 Fase2 Sloop (2e etage).jpg and thought you were cutting the "trusses" from beneath. But with a floor on your head there would be no more posting...

keep up the good work!

a

Thanx A. Yeah, we had to go the whole nine yards with this one. In order to get things done correctly all previous work (which is more than 15 years old anyway) had to be removed. And boy, am I glad we did.

And hell, it's a great job doing so. Keeps me occupied, haha. cheers, ro

I just came back today... just came back from the storm
Holy crap! The dust I suffered today.. man!

We're close to finish phase 2 of this project: demolition.
(or atleast the demo of the second floor)

First thing we did was clean-up remaining mess from last week. Then we removed 3 (three!) layers of carpet and some green tiles which we will prolly re-use when getting the laminated floor done.

One big obstacle has been removed today; the remaining smokechannel. This brickbuild smokechannel was one big dust pool, gheh.
We used a jackhammer and hand tools to remove it. As I expected the whole chimney was build within the existing wall. Well we just jacked it away and there ain't no real damage after all..phew!
But the dust... bleh. Ohwell, atleast it's the (hopefuly) LAST pieces of rock we've got to demo (in the entire building).
At the very end (!) of the job, the hammer broke down.. so we had to do the last pieces of bricks by hand. EASY!

What's left is the "floating" (euh..not!) floor. It's a wood frame with wool and some board on top. No big deal. We'll remove the thing next time.

As always; picture time!

1 - Removing carpets
2 - My friend working the jackhammer. Funny detail; the band, in which he is the drummer, is actually called.... Jackhammer!
3 - Damn, it broke!
4 - Ah, the chimney/smokechannel complete removed
5 - This space between us is killing me! (wow, ECHOOOOO hehe)

Thanks for the great pictures, Ro! Looks like you've been really busy! I'm getting exhausted just thinking about it!

--Keith

_________________
"Converting a garage into living space requires a city permit . . . homeowners insurance won't cover a structure that's been changed without a building permit . . ." --Sacramento Bee, May 27, 2006

Holy Crap, we're done!
Yes, ladies and gents, seems like demolition is somewhat done after all the hard labour we've done today.

So, euh, ro... WHAT have you done then?
well:

* Removed the raised floor which was a pain in the ass since most panels were not only nailed but also glued to the frame... damn, WHAT were they thinking when they build it.. it would fall apart or something? Anyway, it's removed (finally)
* Removed last pieces of wiring, gypsum, and more stuff.
* Removed the last piece of the old chimney
* Removed nails, screws and what not from the wood beams.
* Cleaning the place up
* Drove 2 times with the buss to the junkyard to dump the last stuff.
* Had a beer....


YAY! Feels goot to have a stripped and empty room. Next up: brick close the existing windows on the second floor.

As always, here's proof:

How much for those windows?
Howdy yalll, just back from another fine demo hour (or 2). Remember (skip back in this thread if ya like) the rotten windows on the second floor? No? check picture one....

Well, it was time to get rid of them since a mason contractor will come round to close the whole with bricks. That'll do some serious noise transfer killing. Well, let's not get ahead.
I've also removed some stucco, more on that later.

First, them pix!

1-(old photo from last year). The rotten windows in the second floor which we removed.
2- Hacking away, already half done.
3- The removed windows.... junk!
4- DON! Lotsa light comming in
5- From the outside it now looks like this. You can see we removed quit a bit of rotten wood.

Next time, when the gap gets bricked, we will remove the whole wood section.

(continue)

While removing windows (see up ) I also started removing some old and bad stucco. Lotsa stucco broke loose from the wall already so I decided to hack away some more loose stucco. .... ucha ucha, damn dust!

While hacking away, the bricked wall appeared and with that I noticed some serious cracks in the wall. Yikes!

Check the attached picture.

The wall is a double bricked one, the photo only shows the inner wall. Dunno if there's an air cavity in between (yet) But we'll check that next time when the brickwork is getting done. Anyways... These cracks are not the only one, the whole darn building is full of'm. But these are the biggest.

Any advise from ya lats on how continue with this?

Damned Ro, you still have lot's to do.

I think you should hire Lou. His organizational talents are amazing.

Just teasing ......
A lot of courage, and energy ....

_________________
Best regards - Eric Desart
My posts are never meant to sell whatever incl. myself, neither direct, nor indirect.

Amazing work Ro - I would suspect that cracks like that might be caused by movement in the foundation

You may have to get someone to look at it.

Little boys...
Howdy!

It's been a while since we seriously got some work done on this project. Two reasons:
- on februari the 1st me and the misses received a healty SON! His name's Daan. It's my first born so you can imagen the things on my mind... what a great day this was.
I added a picture which was taken today, 7 weeks old. ain't it a cool fella

- second reason: delay on hiringa masonary contrator (I won't bother you with details). We finally got round to make plans. Next friday the rotten windows on the 2nd floor (scroll back to see what I'm talking about) will be masoned to have it closed completely. let's live in the dark....

There's gonna be around 2400 stoned masoned in which will take 3 experts about one day. Prior to that we'll stud the existing roof and floor underneath. So, untill next week