To be honest, that was one of the easier rooms. It is the only room where we left the original floor. The rest, 100sqm, we dug 18” down and laid ballast, insulation, screed and tiles on top, and the tiling was fun as they were 1sqm each and 6mm thick, so we had to DITRAmat the whole area. Also there was no steel needed in that room, except a fitch beam to suspend the doors.
Started in May and spent the first month building a foundation 3.5m deep and 14m long, the builders were gone by early September and all the painting, cabinetry, kitchen, bedroom furniture, 2nd fix, heating system, tiling, curtains and glazing and a load of other things were done by mid December. I managed it, the wife did most of the interior design.
A couple years later I had a hifi rack made with the same veneer, we had quite a bit left over, and the plinth for my Garrard 301. I had the lacquered, 20 coats, took about 6 weeks.
More the lights are speakers. They are very bright with a very wide beam so you don’t need many. The brightness can be set at 1% intervals and the colour ranges from 2,700 to 4,800 kelvin. Very good sound quality, go to about 38Hz -6dB, stream wirelessly at 24/192 PCM. See Zuma.ai Had them for 5 years and very happy with them.
The walls are done with a silk wallpaper. The radiators are from Zehnder (used to be called Bisque), and are crazy expensive. That one now costs over £2,000. I bought three, that one and two longer ones, in a warehouse sale about a year before and put them in storage. Think I paid half price. Reclaim ones are now very expensive and then you have to sandblast and lacquer them. Years ago I saw people chuck them on skips.
Sounds like a full home remodel. We’ve also remodeled our entire home, no planning, just one room at at time over 20 years. Each room remodel started the same, with a complete demo, then complete rebuild up from studs and bare slab.
We did have to do foundation work with a 3 level slab starting below street level and stepping down the slopped property. Added 40 piers under the slab to stabilize it, added a 300 foot long 7 foot tall retaining wall down the slope behind the house and had over a hundred truck loads of soil brought in to create a nice sized yard to replace the slope. Because the property started below the road grade heavy rain was an issue. We had the front terraced to slow the rain water flow and a 2 foot deep stone-walled dry creek bed across the front and down the side of the house to move the water around the house and out past the retaining wall.
We basically spent 80k on the huge year long landscaping job to save the house from flooding and moving down the slope. Why? My wife bought this property when she was single and she absolutely loves it for sentimental reasons. We had to make it work.
Same here, music in every room, with the addition of 100’ Ethernet cables to the Greenhouse and Shop for music anywhere on our property.
Yours sounds and looks really nice. Enjoy the fruits of your labor.
Subsidence is common. in London as much of the town is built clay, and the only way to fix it is by underpinning the property. Our 3m deep foundation was to protect the house from tree roots. As you describe, after a job like that, getting Roon to work is easy. One thing I did during this job was put in a Ubiquiti network with fibre for the hifi and AV and a 100’ cable to the building at the end of the garden.
People obsess about all sorts of things. Some people obsess about interior design, get Feng Shui consultants, you name it. I suspect a lot of people here are equally obsessed with hifi cables and whatnot.
We didn’t get a Feng Shui consultant. My wife did the main space with Axel Vervoordt in her head. As much open space as possible and no cr@p. No shiny metal. No handles on anything. No colour. Music rooms are different because you have to deal with acoustics, hence the strategic placement of furnishings with soft velvet coverings, one covering the first reflection point on the left. On the right reflection point is an open record unit.
I feel you on that. Trying to make the most out of our 1 bed apartment. Strategic placement with some stuff, pulling the couch away from the wall, curtains to reduce reflections. Even some books strategically placed behind my listening position for some dispersions. The marble coffee table is not ideal but trying to strike that balance between living vs listening space.
Really enjoy seeing full-room setups and how people make them their own—thanks for sharing.
When we moved into our 1927 character home, I knew there would be some challenges. The rooms are on the smaller side, so the main living area made the most sense for the AV setup. It features a nice archway that we’ve been able to use to our advantage. Tearing down walls wasn’t an option due to time and budget.
The TV is 65”, and the archway frames it nicely—especially in low light. For the first time, I also prioritized easy access to the rear of all gear and wiring, which has worked out well.
Room treatment is minimal. I’m running Dirac for digital full-room correction, and otherwise rely on plush furniture and area rugs over hardwood floors. I didn’t want to fully cover the floors, so large rugs felt like the right balance.
You’ll notice the walls are still bare—I’m planning to get some art up this year.
Overall, the room works well and is very enjoyable to use.
One additional consideration was the aquarium placement—I kept it away from the speakers to avoid vibration issues.
I’ve thought about adding some passive ceiling treatment, but I’m cautious about making the space feel any smaller.
Appreciate it! It’s just an inexpensive, long entry table I got off Wayfair. Moving the couch off the back wall just ~16 in made such a noticeable improvement but looked odd so this worked out. I ended up hiding my sub under the table as well.
The nightstand setup got an upgrade. Schiit Valhalla 3 entered the mix. Morpheus sits on the Bluesound Nano. Headphones being employed: Beyerdynamic DT880 (250Ω), Meze Audio 99 Classics, and Sennheiser HD660S2.
