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DIY House Project? (Read 10788 times)
Lonely Raven
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DIY House Project?
09/27/18 at 17:58:30
 
I've been busy with work and personal stuff lately - haven't been around much, but felt like posting. I wasn't sure if I should do this in general, but DIY needs more traffic so I'll post it here since it loosely qualifies. LOL

To help pay the bills, I've picked up a part time job building Xovers for a speaker builder I know and am friends with. I'm basically a solder slinger for hire.




I've started tearing up the old, blood stained berber carpet from the living room and dining room, which is also my Home Theater and Listening Room.








And in its place I've put down some "Luxury Vinyl Tile", which is a cork backed, wood-look, embossed vinyl plank that really surprised me with how much it looked like wood...and I'm a casual woodworker that knows and loves a good figured woodgrain. This isn't the greatest stuff, but I'm able to throw down 1000 square feet (basically my whole main floor) for about $2500 including install supplies.





I had to throw in a picture of the couch I repaired (cracked frame and strapping from very large friends *flopping* down into it)  along with my DIY large 21" subwoofer - which needs to be repaired this fall. The sub sounds weak and flubby when it used to literally shake the siding and rattle the soffits on the outside of the house! I currently have an 18" that's crushing this 21", so something is definitely wrong.



I've also been working on my yard...shoveling 3-4 tons of biosolids across my corner lot and planting sod grade grass seed...but that's a story for another day.

Just wanted to share. Since I'm super broke and now working two jobs, plus taking side jobs repairing computers and building audiophile PCs, I've just been really busy and not really doing much audio related. Though, this winter I plan on getting back to my Tiny Room project and building diffusers and bass traps...assuming I have enough materials in stock, because I sure can't afford more! LOL










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Lonely Raven
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Re: DIY House Project?
Reply #1 - 09/27/18 at 18:44:17
 
Oh yeah, forgot to mention - what little "good sound" I had in this room is all completely gone with the removal of the carpet. I'm apparently so tuned to room acoustics, that I can hear the frequency the room reverberates at...and it's making even watching TV sound like I'm listening to it in a long tube.

Once the floor is done, I'm going to slowly bring in some diffusers, and probably install *all* the absorbers I have on the ceiling to try and put it back to at least where I had it with the carpet. Hopefully, with some work and measurements, better.
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deucekazoo
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Re: DIY House Project?
Reply #2 - 09/27/18 at 19:21:36
 
Place is looking good!
If you can I would throw some floor rugs down to help with the acoustics.
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Lonely Raven
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Re: DIY House Project?
Reply #3 - 09/27/18 at 20:05:54
 
I figure I'll need at least one plush rug between the couch and speakers, but that will have to wait as they tend to be expensive for anything I remotely like.

I'll also have to make some wood bullnoses for the 6 steps going up from the front door to the livingspace. And transitions between rooms/floors. The Vinyl Planks I'm using are Acacia pattern in sort of a walnut with a hint of red tone - so depending on the light the floors look warm cherry wood or brown walnut. Nobody makes any transitions/bullnoses I like, so I'll just have to craft them myself!  I'll probably make a prototype out of oak, then go replicate in actual Acacia.  :)
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4krow
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Re: DIY House Project?
Reply #4 - 09/27/18 at 20:58:25
 
LR,

 Same thing happened to my room when installing wood floors. No doubt they are beautiful, BUT not so good for listening. Diffusers and just about anything else you can think of probably applies here. Just take a look at the 'average' listening room though. Glass sliding doors, poor room dimensions, speakers in corners, and the list goes on. No wonder some buy tweak after tweak to try and get it right.
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Lonely Raven
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Re: DIY House Project?
Reply #5 - 09/28/18 at 19:13:33
 
Yeah, but I know how good I had it. So it's hard to not just fall back to zero, but be below the room acoustics that I started with. Either way, I've been dabbling in this for more than a decade, so I'll figure something out.  :)

I got the dining room stripped back, cleaned up the floor, pulled hundreds of staples, cleaned the floor, found and pulled more staples, cleaned the floor, pulled any loose nails and replaced with construction screws, added about 150 more screws to lock down squeaks and flatten out subfloor, belt sand high spots, found a few more staples, cleaned the floor, then started laying out vinyl planks.  :P





I really wanted contiguous flooring through the hallway, living room, dining room, and kitchen...but the previous owners apparently added 5/8" layer to the existing flooring for the kitchen, probably to put in tile...so I have this almost 3/4" gap between flooring. I guess I have no choice but to have a transition at each side of the kitchen. I can't afford to raise everything else to this level, so I'll just craft some pretty transitions between floors using actual Acacia wood.




I'm pleased with the results though! I'm looking forward to getting the kitchen done, then bathroom, then entryway and stairs up from the entryway. We'll see how I feel about the flooring after all that, but I'm seriously thinking that if I can afford it, I might just go ahead and do the basement and laundry room in this same flooring. I really do love the look and feel of it. It sucks that they don't have bullnoses and transitions, but hey, it's budget stuff that's not common in the US, so I'll just make what I need.







I'm not sure how I'm going to afford all new trim, but all this fake wood and vintage pine trim needs to be replaced. I was hoping to reuse the old pine, but a lot of it was really thin, dry, and cracked when removing due to the overlarge nails they used to install them. (shrug) I'm still very pleased with this so far.

Oh yeah,  hooked up some old Bose speakers my Dad gave me when he retired and moved to Colorado. He got them for free since he used to sell at a local shop that eventually became Tweeter. They'd have programs where for every 20 pairs you sold you got a free pair or something like that. So we've always had Bose speakers around the house as beater speakers. So I listened to music while working. Off-axis the tubular echo I hear from the couch was gone, and it actually sounded really good for being well used 35 year old Bose pushed by my ZMA. Just don't walk in front of them (back on-axis), it sounded like stock speakers in a car stereo...in a tube. LOL



I'm looking forward to getting all my sound treatment back in, and my little Zen amp and other gear back from Palomino!   Smiley










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dank
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Re: DIY House Project?
Reply #6 - 10/21/18 at 00:52:13
 
LR

You can sometimes get AMAZING deals on oriental rugs on Craigs List, at least you can in MN.  (10 cents on the dollar maybe?)  Nothing looks better than a stunning oriental rug on top of a hardwood floor (IMHO).

DanK
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Dana
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Re: DIY House Project?
Reply #7 - 10/21/18 at 07:38:30
 
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Tom Waits:
And the newspapers were fooling,
And the ash-trays have retired
'Cause the piano has been drinking,
The piano has been drinking
The piano has been drinking,
Not me, not me, not me, not me, not me
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Lonely Raven
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Re: DIY House Project?
Reply #8 - 10/22/18 at 15:04:39
 

LOL, you didn't even need to post the video, your avatar gave it away.
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Lonely Raven
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Re: DIY House Project?
Reply #9 - 11/12/18 at 20:53:26
 

A little self-serving, but it makes me happy.

I still haven't found an area rug I like yet. I'm going to be moving more absorption panels into the listening room this week. We'll see how that goes. In the mean time, the ZMA is sounding better every day!








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Dana
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Re: DIY House Project?
Reply #10 - 11/13/18 at 21:31:47
 
I apologize I just can't help myself but...
that shower curtain really tied the room together
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Tom Waits:
And the newspapers were fooling,
And the ash-trays have retired
'Cause the piano has been drinking,
The piano has been drinking
The piano has been drinking,
Not me, not me, not me, not me, not me
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Lonely Raven
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Re: DIY House Project?
Reply #11 - 11/14/18 at 14:58:42
 

It works, I'll take the comment happily!

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Lonely Raven
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Re: DIY House Project?
Reply #12 - 11/20/18 at 18:33:26
 

Anyone know what the absorption rate of leather shag with woven cloth backing is? LOL






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4krow
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Re: DIY House Project?
Reply #13 - 11/20/18 at 21:23:55
 
 Damned good idea about getting decent area rug. I keep forgetting to put that on my list. Your right about the cost though.
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lazb
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Re: DIY House Project?
Reply #14 - 11/21/18 at 02:59:31
 
LR, that rug is remarkable! Not in a million years would I get my wife's approval. So far, I have not been able to convince her of ANY area rug.  :-[
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Lonely Raven
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Re: DIY House Project?
Reply #15 - 11/21/18 at 05:33:52
 
Quote:
Damned good idea about getting decent area rug. I keep forgetting to put that on my list. Your right about the cost though.


I've been looking for a while - I picked up this leather shag for $140 off Facebook Marketplace. First one I saw that I liked, at a reasonable price.

Quote:
LR, that rug is remarkable! Not in a million years would I get my wife's approval. So far, I have not been able to convince her of ANY area rug.  :-[


I thought chicks like area rugs! What the hell do I know. Smiley
Seriously though, I didn't think the vinyl floor was going to be so cold, so this was a necessity. Hopefully it helps sound wise as well.

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