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I intend to build a 15x9 room with 8' ceiling on one side of my garage to be used as a music/recording studio. I live in Phoenix, AZ area. I believe I can save money if I do all the framing and attach double 4x8 sheets of sound board to the outside walls. I will then hire an electrician, after which time, I'll staple 16" strips of R13 insulation. I'll hire out the drywall.

I know very little about carpentry. I need some direction on how to approach the framing part of the project. Do I build 4 separate wall frames flat on the ground, and when complete, stand them up and anchor into the concrete floor? How do I place a 15x9 ceiling on top of the 4 wall frames? Any other guidance would be appreciated.

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Since you're already hiring out the electrical and drywall work, and you're not skilled in framing, why not hire a carpenter for the framing? Or get some experience with a local volunteer group. Mistakes in framing can lead to a structure collapse, which would be bad. – BMitch♦ Dec 30 '12 at 22:32
Given the heat, run good A/C and ventilation. Even if your garage wasn't hot before, if it's loaded with A/V gear it could heat up. Just build that into your plans. – T. Schrader Mar 19 at 19:48
Are you planning on using the rest of the garage for a car? If you are, you should make sure you seal the new room against potentially exhaust-laden air from the garage. – Evan Johnson Apr 18 at 21:06
Oh yeah, and building the wall frames separately and then putting them up should work fine as long as you put them together well. – Evan Johnson Apr 18 at 21:07

2 Answers

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What is above where the room will go right now and how high is it? If its roof truses, you could attach drywall directly to them or put some 2x4's (laying flat) across the bottom of those and that will be your ceiling. If you have to provide support for the ceiling, then you will need to put 2x6's on edge across the 8 foot span. These 2x6's should rest on the top of the walls directly over the studs.

Its much easier to build walls laying down and then stand them up if you have the available height.

As for attaching to the concrete , you could use lead anchors or the tool that shoots nails into conrete with a small powder charge. I built a room in a garage once and just used contruction adhesive to glue the boards down. It stuck like crazy and I had work hard years later to pry them loose.

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If you look online, you will find lots of information on framing walls in basements; the same techniques will work there. The base plates of the walls are generally attached with either powder-driven fasteners or a concrete screw such as the tapcons. If you have trusses, you should not attach the walls directly to the bottom of the trusses since the trusses flex up and down from season to season. Instead, you use truss clips, which will allow the trusses to move up and down.

It can be difficult to build partition walls and lift them because they may not fit exactly; in that case you will have to cut each stud to length.

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