Converting a double garage

[twsknight]

Hi all,

I'm a long time lurking and very occasional poster, but now that I'm on the cusp of a house purchase that contains a double garage! Better yet, my darling wife is more than happy for me to convert the garage into a studio. We see this as a long term project, but I'd like to get something up a running sooner rather than later, so what I'd like to is basically take the garage and make it feel more like a real room.

So I'm thinking of plasterboarding the brick work and maybe plastering over that, if that's the done thing! I've also been informed that you can use plasterboard to make the ceiling solid as its all metal framework at the moment.

There are a couple of things that are confusing me:
The floor, at the moment it's just cement, and its a bit uneven with wear and tear. What do I have to do to make it more like proper flooring. Level it with cement I guess is the first job, but what next? Also should I do that first?

Also, the plasterboard will be away from the walls as there are some brick square columns that stick out a little bit further from the wall. Is there something I can use to fill the gaps that would work as both insulation and soundproofing? The sound proofing doesn't need to be state of the art as we're hoping that one day we'll have it professionally converted into a real room. Get windows put in and everything.
What I'm planning will still have the facade of a garage outside but inside will feel more comfortable to be in than a garage and hopefully not be as exposed to elements so I can put my guitars in there without worrying about the temperature having adverse effects on them.

Apologies for the long post, hopefully that makes sense!

 

[mjbphotos]

Do a lot of reading, there are many threads here that can help you. For true soundproofing, you need to build a 'room within a room', with walls and floors filled with sound insulation and avoiding solid-surface of the inside room touching the solid surfaces of the outside room, which will conduct sound.

Realistically, as you say you will be converting the room into a 'real room' eventually, why not do it the right way to start, instead of doing something halfway and having to rip it out to start again?
Level off the floor, seal it and put in a floating laminate wood floor (cheaper than hardwood) if you don't want to frame up a whole floor. Put up stud walls, with insulation, sheetrock/plasterboard over them. Same thing on the ceiling - ceiling joists across the room, insulated, then sheetrock. Consieder what you are going to do about the overhead garage doors, too.
Remember that all of this work should be done per the local building codes.
When you're doing all this consider the needs of heat, ventilation and air conditioning.
Once you've got the structure in place, then you can look at sound treatment in the room itself. What's your budget? If you are doing all the work yourself, you can still figure on close to 5 figures just to put the room up.