Converting a warehouse into a living space?
- Thread starter TylerL
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that's actually a dream of mine to buy a warehouse/old urban building and turn it into sick ass place to live. the shittier it is on the outside the better because it's gonna be ballin' on the inside. my gf thinks the idea is crazy but whatever...i call it my "bruce wayne complex"
I haven't even mentioned it to the GF yet. All I know is I want a place to invite friends over for a drink without having to worry about not having room, and I want a place where I could make a mini music studio without using my entire living space to do it.
Oh, and maybe a giant trampoline + pool.
If you're good at plumbing (including risers), sheetrocking, electrical wiring, flooring, running gas lines etc it's more than doable. I went through a warehouse conversion some years ago in the financial district of NYC.
Depending upon your location, heating can be the biggest issue. Around here, most warehouses have huge gas heaters suspended from the ceiling that can be quite expensive to use in the winter and quite expensive to have removed, not to mention the expense of installing another form of heating. Most warehouses are not very cozy or very well-insulated. Big old drafty windows are another consideration.
Depending upon your location, heating can be the biggest issue. Around here, most warehouses have huge gas heaters suspended from the ceiling that can be quite expensive to use in the winter and quite expensive to have removed, not to mention the expense of installing another form of heating. Most warehouses are not very cozy or very well-insulated. Big old drafty windows are another consideration.
I'm in Northern-ish Ontario, so if I were to do this here heating would be a huge problem, however I plan to move south as soon as possible so hopefully I can cut back on costs that way.
My biggest concerns are finding a good way to:
a) Soundproof huge rooms without spending 50 grand
b) Create enclosed sections for the more "private" rooms
Yep, it will be a major expense.
you will need to install double walls with a few inches of empty space in between and mount the interior studio wall on rubber shims to absorb vibration. This prevents the wall from becoming something of a diaphram (like a speaker driver) and transducing the sound in the outside areas. The empty space between the sheetrock prevents one wall from transferring the vibration to the outside wall.
If the studio is especially large, you'll have an issue with low end, but you can purchase or make bass traps to minimize the boominess.
Unless you're recording a lot of acoustic instruments and voice, thereby needing a studio as well as a control room, you may find that you don't need as much space as you think for that part. The issue is that low end that aggregates in a large space, which will impact how you interpret what you're mixing. In fact, most professional audio control rooms are purposely shallow for that reason.
I know a guy that did it... he pays over $3k a month and the place is a piece of shit. So, plan on spending some cash. Lots of it.
Years ago we just did it illegally in NYC, with the landlord's blessing and just ended up owning the building after the renovation.
A few years ago I researched doing something similar with a building in the downtown district of a smaller community in NY state and the city was pretty cool with it in terms of districting. In this case I was buying first. I had planned to build lofts in the upper floors for myself and my partner and rent the ground floor to a nice quite accountant, lawyer or similar.
It was a great idea. The building, however, was a fucking mess and not worth it in the long run. I'm still looking somewhat, although not terribly actively.
see my plan was to buy a private island for all my bros, and call it the Brohamas where we could all bro-down, no homo
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