Results 1 to 4 of 4

Thread: Help me design DJ room / Office room please...

  1. #1
    Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    351

    Help me design DJ room / Office room please...

    Can someone help me design my room?

    Following on from the revelation that Ikea are binning their Expedit line, I decided it was high time I finally sorted out my Office / DJ room. With that in mind, I am lost in how I can design / arrange it for maximum impact. So I ask if there is anyone on here who might be willing to offer up some suggestions? Ideally I'll be going for bright white walls, so would like nice dark furnishings. Looking at Ikea, and their Expedit line, I'd be inclined to go for the Black / Brown colour option. With that being said, it certainly doesn't HAVE to be Ikea furniture, however, the 5 x 5 Expedit units do look like the perfect solution for mass vinyl storage (I have in the region of ~3000 records, plus many hundreds CD's).

    Ideally I would like 2 of the 5x5 Expedit units in here somewhere, as that would seem to be enough to cover my storage needs... But I can always add other storage units if they serve dual purposes.

    Anyway, I will be ripping everything out of the room, and starting afresh. It'll get a fresh lick of paint, undecided about new carpet or whatever, but it it'll basically be a blank canvas. I would, ideally, like to keep the spend under around £500. The closer to £400 the better really, but I don't want to do this again, so if it goes over-budget slightly, I can live with that. The 2 5x5 Expedits should keep me sorted for actual storage space, as any spare slots I can fill with drawers or something. Suggestions for funky lighting are also welcome.

    So what is to go into the room? Well, I have my pair of 1210's and DB4 with the Reloop contour controller. I would like the space to expand to CDJ's at some point too, but I don't mind if they are to be wall mounted or something to keep things relatively compact. To go with that is a small form desktop PC, with a single monitor just now, but I have multiple monitors I can use, so I could go double monitor on the DJ set-up for ease of use. I then have a NAD Stereo amplifier, and a couple bookshelf speakers to go with this. I'm not sure what speakers yet though, as I have a pair of Wharfedales, and a pair of B&W's, so I have some flexibility here.

    The room is also my office though, so I need a reasonable amount of workspace for my Laptop, and monitor, printer (can be elsewhere in room as it is wireless), mouse and keyboard for this side of things. This set-up has a little 2.1 speaker set-up to go with it, but I guess I could plumb this into stereo I use for the decks if I had to. I also have a HP Microserver, which currently isn't in this room, but it might be nice to shift it in here too. A monitor would be nice for this too, as well as keyboard and mouse, but this can all be tucked away most of the time, could keep it all in a couple of the spare slots I'm likely to have with the 50 expedit slots I'm looking at, lol. Would just need a fold away worktop or something for the keyboard / mouse to sit on. Basically, I don't really want it in the way of my more often used PC / DJ space.

    Beyond that, it would be nice to have some workspace left for all my electronic cigarette paraphernalia, but so long as I have a reasonable amount of office space, and a few drawers / slots available in the Expedit, I should be okay.

    So, that's about it. I realise most of you people out there will be like, "screw you, use your own inspiration", but then there may be a couple, who like me, like to help spend other peoples money in such ways. I like doing it in other areas, like modding cars or whatever, but am looking for a little help here.

    Here is a plan of the room :



    Not great, I know. Only really had MS paint, so not to scale or anything, just drew boxes, and put in dimensions. There is a ledge on the narrower side of the room that comes up to 96cm in height. That can't be taken down. There are electrical sockets on there though, and my phone socket, sitting just above where the current table-top sits. And another electrical socket on the actual back wall. There is also the fuse board cut into the wall in the top left corner (as drawn), into the ledge, that needs access.

    And a few pictures of how it currently sits. As you can probably see, there isn't really enough storage, and excuse the state of the place, it's an absolute tip...

    From the Door :



    Towards the Door :



    Towards far wall, currently where DJ gear is set-up, 2 1210's have now been sold. Can see ledge and sockets.



    Current Office (PC) space. Notice it sticks out into room. I don't mind repeating this set-up if I'm honest. Sticks out 200 cm from ledge :



    Remaining Corner. Printer is there somewhere, and some records.



    Records are currently scattered everywhere, as is pretty much everything if I'm honest. I just need to tidy the place up a bit, and increase storage. Particularly the records.

    HELP...
    Technics 1210 mk2's, Pioneer CDJ 500, Allen & Heath DB4, Reloop Contour Controller Edition, Sennheiser HD25 1-II or Allen & Heath XD2-53's depending on my mood...
    Mixcloud : xs2man - Latest Mix: 22-06-2013

  2. #2
    Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    Gloucestershire
    Posts
    829
    Good luck with the project That's a nice sized room to work with. The first thing you should do is have a clear out of everything that doesn't need to be in there so you have a better idea of how much storage space you need. Then spend time thinking about how everything should be set out to make your day to day life easy. While you're working in there for the next few weeks always keep in mind adjusments you could make to the layout to make you more efficient. If you use something a lot and find you're constantly travelling to it then it will be more efficient to make it more accessible. You can only notice stuff like that as it happens.

    Just my opinion but I think you should try and have a sense of seperation between the working space for your job and DJing so perhaps have your job zone against the west wall and the DJ zone where it is now which means you just need a swivel chair to move between the two but if you share monitors/laptops etc that might not be an option. I would stuggle to keep concentration when I'm doing my job if my DJ gear was right in front of me but I'm easily distracted

    For good deals on furniture check out British Heart Foundation stores which are known for their huge range of furniture especially storage units.

  3. #3
    Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    351
    Thanks for the suggestions. That'll all be taken in.

    I cannot realistically strip everything out before designing the room though. There is too much stuff in this room, I have no-where to keep it for longer than a couple days without it bugging the wifes tits. So my plan was to design and buy, get everything I need ready, then take a couple days to fit it out.

    I like the separation idea. That's pretty much what I was thinking. I currently don't share ANY equipment between the office use and the DJ use, as I have computers coming out of my ears (currently have no less than 2 large desktops not in use, and around 3 monitors, lol).

    With that in mind, I was thinking having an expedit 5x5 on the south wall, hard up against the door as you come in (the light switch for the room is on the outside, so no issue there). And the other on the West wall, hard up against the ledge. This leaves a corner in the South / West free (It's actually North East in reality, but I'm going with the orientation of the plan). This corner would be 95cm by 105cm. Which should be plenty big enough for the office area. So that would clear up my office stuff. I can leave a bank of 5 slots for storing my regularly used office stuff on one Expedit, and the same on the other for my E-cig / other sort of stuff, still leaving 40 slots left for records, should I need them. The only downside of this is it eats into my Fuse box access by 20cm.

    This should leave around 215 cm off free space along the south wall. Now I could go with a 4 x 2 Expedit here, tucked into the corner with that "almost" square room cutting into the room. The pop a 200cm tabletop ontop of it to regain the worktop space I currently have. I could then add in another 200 cm tabletop at right angles to that sticking out into the room beside the corner room, as it does currently, further increasing my workspace area. I can fully utilise my ledge though with holding monitors, and installing speaker stands and the like. And set my DJ gear up against the South wall as it is currently.

    Quick edit of the shitty Paint picture, again, obviously not to scale, and the corner would be slightly more uniform, lol. Any suggestions for a decent room design program? :



    This is basically an lack of imagination idea though. It is basically the same set-up I currently have, but with a chest of drawers, and the current West side unit simply being replaced with 5 x 5 Expedits, shifting my PC stuff to the corner between them, rather than in the "island" area I currently have, and changing the colour of the furniture. This should com in below budget too.

    But that may not be the "coolest" way to set it all up, so I was looking for some inspiration, lol.
    Last edited by xs2man; 02-21-2014 at 04:08 AM.
    Technics 1210 mk2's, Pioneer CDJ 500, Allen & Heath DB4, Reloop Contour Controller Edition, Sennheiser HD25 1-II or Allen & Heath XD2-53's depending on my mood...
    Mixcloud : xs2man - Latest Mix: 22-06-2013

  4. #4
    Member DennisBdrmDJ 2.0's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Location
    New York City
    Posts
    1,940
    • check out all the other set-up,in the"Post pic of your set-up" thread.. something in there,should inspire you.
    • go online and check out DIY Home Recording studio...something online should inspire you.
    • forget the bright white paint job,it turns pale yellow () very quickly,if your'e a smoker
    • think sound reinforcement.http://www.atsacoustics.com/item--AT...x-2--1000.html
    • think speaker placement!

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
a