So, for better or worse, I'm trying my hand at music room construction. I'll try to chronicle the development of the room here in hopes that either my successes or my failures  can be helpful to someone else.

Goals and constraints

1. One room, to serve as both recording room and control room
2. Good recording sound is more important than control room sound, I won't be doing any complex mixes here, and I'd rather let a pro do any eq'ing or mastering.
3. To be used only for acoustic music, namely solo guitar. So no drums booths, vocal booths, no need to worry about separation of multiple instruments, etc.
4. Should be fun to play in as well as record and be a pleasant place to hang out
5. As we may want to tear it out someday, nothing permanently destructive to the garage. We've already built a set of inside walls in the garage, that at least in theory can be removed with minimal effort.
6. A pro studio would deal with sound isolation, keeping noise from both leaving and entering the studio. I'm not going to worry about this. My acoustic guitar isn't going to bother the neighbors (we already managed to have a punk band with Marshalls going full blast in this room without bothering anyone) and I'll just live with the incoming sounds and work around them when I'm recording.

Process and Progress (I'll update this as I go)

Some of these pages contain a lot of graphics, so they may be a bit slow to load!

Step 1: Investigation and Education

Step 2: Plans

Step 3: Beginning Construction

Step 4: Initial measurements and test recording

Step 5: Experiments in initial treatment

Step 6: Basic decorating and finishing, flooring, trim, etc.