At long last, we have begun the walling-in of our band room. We started with the most complex part: the wall with the door in it. Not only did we have to figure out how to put the wall up around the door, but the wall featured several annoyingly-placed columns that are braced under the main support beam of the house. We ended up just paneling over the columns, effectively losing some 40 cubic feet of space between the columns. It sucks to lose the space, but I take some comfort in thinking that the extra air space inside will aid the soundproofing.
Part of this process involves sealing up any gaps, no matter how small, in the room. For the smaller gaps I'm using acoustic caulk, and for the larger gaps … expanding foam! This stuff is so cool! I'm still getting the hang of spraying it, but when you do it right, this foam could basically filly up the grand canyon. Once it dries it turns into super-resilient styrofoam kind of substance. If I had it to do all over again, I'd just build the whole room out of expanding foam.
