Tuesday 20 August 2013

Building a Studio: Installing The Window and Door and Insulation

When my wife first saw this house she thought it was, "The One". It has everything we want and need. It's in the same community we were in before, but really close to the school our children attend. It has tons of space. As it matters to art: It has a workshop in the basement and a detached garage. The door opens into the garden, which faces north. Right away we could picture how it would look when finished.


A temporary wall was built to support the weight of the roof before we cut the hole for the new door and window.

The window.

Inside looking out

Both the window and door.

It's pretty cold here in Canada. We have winter for eight or more months a year. So to turn a garage into a studio we felt that it really needed to be insulated properly. After building the floor up to get it off the concrete we then spray foamed it. We also did this to the ceiling. It was expensive, but we just felt that that's where the majority of heat loss occurs. We used bat insulation on the walls.








Apparently this stuff is deadly in liquid form (hence the hazmat suits) but within ten seconds I'm told you can it eat. I didn't believe them so I made my kids eat a bunch. Turns out they were right...

Thursday 8 August 2013

Building a Studio: Framing

A side note: Since my last post Calgary and a lot of Southern Alberta has gone through major flooding. It's like there are two different Calgarys'. Personally our property was not affected. In the studio, the contractors hadn't gotten the siding up yet so there was a bit of water damage to the drywall from the rain. No flooding occurred. My family and myself spent a great deal of time trying to help out the victims where we could...

Now back to work!

We had to make a modification in the engineering. The solution they came up with is to have to cables running width wise across to provide extra protection from the roofing buckling and falling down. Personally, I feel this is just a step by the city to make a bit of extra cash and a legal failsafe (over-engineering). It was built so strongly that there is no way it would ever cave in. The cables were put in before the trusses were taken down.

Really expensive anchor the engineer came up with that was originally engineered incorrectly...

Next it's time to cut the hole for the bay window.

Uninstall the garage door and frame it.

This is the hole for the french Door.

The floor is built up with pressure treated 2 x 4. It's reinforced, glued, and screwed down.

The ceiling without trusses.

Next the window was built. This itself was a big job. I have confidence that if a tornado picked up the studio and threw it across town, this window would still be intact! It's attached to both the ceiling beams and the structure underneath.