Final Days

Ok so I wasn't the best in keeping this blog updated but I did have the best of intentions! ;-)  Anyway, the real reason I am finishing this up now is because I actually had someone email about my project (I'm so glad that someone actually took the time to read my blog!!! 

YAYYYYYYY!!!) and I wanted to at least finish the blog so that others finding my blog actually know that I did finish this project and it really did turn out fabulous!

My last entry indicated that I would be working on installing the carpet on the outside of the booth as well as installing the acoustic foam and electrical for the booth.  I was able to finish putting the carpet on all the walls but I did end up having to purchase another tub of carpet adhesive. And actually I almost didn’t make it with just the one more tub but was able to scrape enough from the sides and bottom of the tub to finish all of the carpeting, including the ventilation system.

I wanted to quickly mention the window in the booth. I think it turned out very well but it was a little tricky to get in place. Mainly trying to keep it clean because it is a double pane window and once it is in place there is no taking it out to clean the inside, so just make sure you use gloves and keep everything as clean as possible when installing the window(s). One other note is that the inside window is not really held in place by anything except silicone. You should be very neat when putting this one so that the silicone does not squeeze out in between the two panes of the window. Just a note so you know to be very careful at this point. ;-)

Window Shot 1

Window Shot 2

Speaking of the ventilation system, mine turned out perfect. As you can see from the following pictures, it pretty much turned out just the plans indicated. I think it took me about a day to turn out the ventilation system and I was very pleased how everything worked. There was one gotcha though and that had to deal with the “silent” fans for the ventilation system. The instructions will tell you that the fans are identical but you just install one of them “backwards” so that one is pushing air and one is pulling air. The idea is that you take a dryer vent and modify it so the fan connects to it so that it is an easy assembly to your fan block. This works out really well but when I put the “backward” fan onto the dryer vent, the blades of the fan were scraping the vent just slightly so I was getting a very annoying noise when I turned them on. I went back and shaved off more of the vent where I thought it was scraping but I kept getting the noise. So my next step was that I put a couple of spacers (washers) between the fan and dryer vent. This helped some but there was still a slight noise so I went back to the shaving and was finally able to get rid of the noise. This by no means is an exact science and just takes some trial and error to fix because you definitely do not want your “silent” ventilation system creating noise that gets pushed right into your booth. ;-)

Inside ventilation pic 1

 

Inside ventilation pic 2

Outside ventilation pic 1

You can see from the photo below that I did have an issue with the placement of the ventilation booth. I did not place mine where the plans indicated but rather opted for putting it at the end (or what I call the end) of the booth on the wall opposite the door.  But in doing so the top hole for one of the vents aligns perfectly with one of the 2x4s on that wall. I was a little bummed at first but after putting everything in place, it didn’t hinder the air flow any so I was ok with it after all.

Also, a side note concerning the ventilation system. When I had the booth install and turned on the system, I wasn’t sure it was doing all that much. It definitely is a very quiet system but you really won’t be able to tell too much by just sticking your hand next to an intake or outtake vent but after using the booth I can tell a major difference. Before I was using just a makeshift booth and it would get so hot in there that I would come out sometime literally with sweat dripping off me but now it is very comfortable inside the booth with the new ventilation system in place.

Another note on the ventilation system that I don’t really do a good job of showing in the pictures is that I wired mine up differently from the plans I received from DawBox. I did include a variable speed switch to my fans but I also wired everything up to a light switch, which is mounted to the outside of the ventilation box. (Unfortunately I do not show this in the pictures) so that I can easily turn the system on and off. Even though the variable speed knob can be turned all the way off to shut off the fan, I wanted to put the light switch in place for convenience as well as the knob is not as stable as a light switch and less wear and tear on the knob is probably a good thing.

Ventilation vents

 Next I went to work on the acoustic foam. This was very easy to install but you need to measure your opening very carefully and cut your foam to fit. If you do not have a very sharp pair of scissors, then I recommend you invest in a pair because this will save you a ton of time when it comes time to cut the foam. I also went through almost every tube of my “liquid nails” in installing the foam.

Before I could complete the foam on the opposite wall of the window wall, I wanted to install my electrical wiring for an outlet as well as a light switch and track lighting for the booth. As you can see from the pictures below, the wiring is nothing difficult. I did a little research online to make sure I knew what I was doing in the wiring department and this actually went fairly smoothly as well. I should note that if I had to do this over I would have made some sort of double wall here because I had to put the acoustic foam over the wiring and it really doesn’t lie correctly now. There are some major bulges in the foam and you can tell that there is something behind it but overall it turned out very nice. I love the fact that I have the lighting as well as an outlet in the booth to plug other equipment into. Also as a side note, you can see my track lighting that I installed on the wall. Pictured are three lights but just to let you know this is way too many lights. With three lights on it gets a bit hot in the booth so I removed one of the lights and just left two of them in. I could probably even get by with just one light but so far two has been working out great for me.

Electrical pic 1

Electrical pic 2

 

Electrical pic 3

You can see in a couple of the pictures that I actually took two long extension cords and cut off the female side and wired these into the booth electrical system as well as the ventilation system, so that in order to power the booth it is just a matter of plugging these into a powered outlet. This also keeps it very portable.

Outside ventilation pic 2

 I did add a few extras on the booth such as molding around the doorframe and window in order to give it a finished look. I also wanted to mention that the vinyl “j-channel” that I purchased worked out nicely as well. Unfortunately I had to trim off part of the channel in order to get it to fit but the trimmed part cannot be seen and what can be seen looks great. The channel has a “flange” on it where normally you would put your screws and this is the part I had to trim off in order to get it to fit. Finally, there was one last gotcha. After putting the booth together, I went to put the top on (make sure you have someone help you with this – it is very heavy) and it would not sit into place easily. I had to do some work in order to get it to sit properly but finally got it to work for me.

Completed box pic 1

Completed box pic 2

One last thing as far as the booth is concerned. I was going to purchase the “Gang Box” for the Mic jack and Headphones jack but at this point I had already gone over budget to get this booth completed so I settled for a very low cost alternative. I ended up drilling about a 1 inch hole in the lower left corner of the window wall and placing a small PVC tube through that. I was going to get the end caps and cut out sections so the cords could be in place and still be able to put the caps on but I then decided to just stuff the tube with left over acoustic foam after I had fed the Mic and Headphone cords through it. I know this may not be as soundproof as others may like but it definitely worked for me.

Since I mentioned budget in my last paragraph I figured I would finish this blog entry by letting you know exactly what it cost me to build this booth. When all was said and done, I was just over $1,100.00. In reality it was probably between $1,200 and $1,300 because I didn’t keep meticulous records of everything I spent and it always seemed like I was running back to Lowes to pick up “one more thing” in order to get the booth finished. This was more than I expected to pay for this but in the end it was well worth what I paid for what I now have. 

This figure does not obviously factor in labor since I did most all of the work myself. My recommendation is to call on all of those good friends of yours to come over and help you knock this project out if you decide to take it upon yourself to build one.

Would I do this again? Absolutely!!! I’m sure if I was a bit more careful I could definitely cut down on some of the expenses and now that I purchased some of the tools I needed, I wouldn’t have to spend anything on those. ;-) It was a major project for me and I’m sure I was grumbling at times as to why I thought I could do this on my own, but now that I’m done I am so glad that I actually did it! I do have a spreadsheet that I have compiled with most of the material that I used that I am not going to post up here but if you are interested, you can email me and I will be happy to send it to you. As mentioned in the blog, I did most of my shopping at Lowes but any home improvement store would carry most if not all of the material that I ended up needing.

So I will just close out this project blog by saying “Stay the Course”!!!