building your own stuff

Building stuff is not that hard. If you passed high school geometry you can probably do it. It is the designing that is more difficult. How high of a stage, how high of a riser do you need, etc. Making the room "work" as a whole is the most difficult part from my perspective. Cutting some wood and screwing it together is not that hard. I tend to build things, tear them down, then re-build them...the problem usually lies in a flawed design.

As far as acoustical treatment to make the room really sound good, I would talk to someone who does that for a living (read: bpape).

I don't think its hard. Remember the stage doesn't really have much to do with acoustics (unless you build it like a drum) and is more for looks. With the wealth of ideas on this forum, it shouldn't be too hard to steal some and make them your own.

The only real challange if whether you have the time to do the research and the tools to pull it off.

What he said! The answer to every conceivable question is in this forum somewhere.. asked and answered more than once I'm sure!

If you have the time to do the research (I would think along the lines of months, not days), I think any reasonably handy person could do it. Actually, not handy. If you have common sense, you can do it.

And if you need help, there's always plenty of people here to help you out-- as long as you are willing to help yourself!

Good luck!

Tim

GOM (Guilford of Main) FR701 fabrics. It's primary use is office cubicles but works great for covering HT walls and speakers.

see Fabricmate.com for source. Colors:http://www.fabricmate.com/fabriccolors.htm

here is a GOM HT wall
and DIY panels

Raw bones:



The panels. Cut to fit the space. I doubt you would find off the shelf in the right size:




The fronts of the frames are painted black so as to not show through the fabric.


The columns and the side walls are also covered in GOM over 1 inch of Linacoustic insulation.

Everything in place:

When I first started planning my HT, all I owned was a screwdriver set and a hammer. I hadn't built anything since a lamp I made in junior high school. I spent 6-9 months doing nothing but reading this forum (probably an hour per day) and asking the occasionaly question. I don't think I ever even started a thread because most things had already been discussed - just had to search for them.

With the exception of the electrical work, I completed the whole thing myself in about 3 months (working on it the occasional weekend), so start to finish was under 1 year. In the process I accumulated several tools and couldn't be happier/prouder of the end result.

At first I thought there was no way I could do it after looking at my plan. When I envisioned having to build a riser, sheetrock over existing windows, build an equipment rack, build a half wall, build DVD storage units (built-ins), put up chair rail, put fabric on the walls, etc. I didn't think it was possible.

However, focusing on one thing at a time really helped. First thing I did was build the riser. I looked at many different risers here and did all the calculations for distance, height, materials, etc. Planned it out on paper, bought the wood and just started building it. Took me 1 whole weekend. After that I knew I could do everything else. You just have to study everything you're about to do and read as much as you can. Everything I drew, I went over a dozen times to see if there were errors. The saying is "measure twice, cut once", but for me it was "check everything 12 times, measure 8 times and cut once".

Good Luck.