Building an Office Conversion with Acrylic Windows and Soundproofing

As I began working on my office conversion, I knew that one of the key elements was going to be creating a comfortable and functional workspace. To achieve this, I decided to use acrylic windows instead of traditional glass ones. I chose to go with large pieces of acrylic because they are lighter and easier to lift, making them perfect for someone working alone on their own project. Additionally, acrylic is a safer option in terms of soundproofing, as it will not transmit sound waves like regular glass would.

I drew a line on the inside of the window frame as a reference point to ensure that my cuts were straight and even. I then cut pieces of quarter-round trim with miters on the ends to fit snugly into the window frame. It's essential to make sure that all four pieces are in place facing one direction, as this will provide a solid foundation for the acrylic window. Once I had completed cutting the trim, I set the acrylic into the window frame against the first set of trim, sandwiching it with another set of trim on the inside of the window. This was easier to do before applying the plastic backing.

To ensure a proper fit, I removed the plastic backing from both sides of the acrylic and applied it to the inside of the window frame. After this step, I nailed the final pieces of trim into place using a brad nailer. With the window complete, I moved on to installing one of those cool LED panels that drop directly into the ceiling. These panels are super bright and will add some much-needed ambiance to my office.

Another significant feature in my office conversion is soundproofing. As someone who works from home, I know how important it is to minimize external noise. To achieve this, I used a combination of materials, including quarter-round trim and acoustic insulation. The result was impressive – the ambient sound level decreased, but not drastically. However, when testing the soundproofing with my kids singing above me, I noticed that the overall voice and high-frequency sounds were almost completely gone. This is purely from a decibel standpoint, and it's essential to note that there's no one-size-fits-all solution for soundproofing.

Insulation was another crucial aspect of this project. While many people swear by regular pink insulation as an effective soundproofing method, I opted for something else entirely. The effectiveness of any type of insulation is unclear, and what works for one person may not work for another. After completing my office conversion, I'm excited to put everything together and get it fully functional. Next on the agenda is building a desk and moving all of my equipment into place.

With the room finally starting to take shape, I can see how much it has changed since before the renovation. The addition of large acrylic windows has greatly improved the overall look of the space, while also providing better soundproofing. As I continue to work on this project, I'll be sure to document every step and share my progress with you. If you're interested in seeing more videos or learning about other projects like this one, be sure to subscribe to my channel for regular updates.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey I'm Bob and I like to make stuff today we're going to turn this storage room into my new office this is my storage room and it's going to be my office very soon but there's a huge amount of work to get it there I've got stud walls with drywall no insulation so I have to finish the outside of these I've got air conditioning ducts that hang down and lower the ceiling I've got these awful lights I have to take down I've got concrete walls I've got to work around my shop is on the other side of that wall and on the other side of this wall is a big room with some windows so to get some of that light into this room we're going to knock a big hole in that wall and put in a window let's get to it and also I just got new glasses and I don't have to wear them all the time but they do work really well as safety glasses I ended up just dragging these into my shop to use for storage and then just started ripping apart all of the old shelving that was in the storage room I saved a lot of this wood and tried to reuse it in other places took down the old lights and then started ripping off the old sheetrock from the ceiling it was unfinished and pretty easy to do the reason I took down the drywall off the ceiling is because our living room is right up there there's gonna be a lot of foot traffic and a lot of conversation up there and I want to try to dampen that sound transfer as much as possible I took that down so I could put insulation up there before I put the drywall back but first I want to get a baseline for how loud it is in here so that we can figure out whether it's actually gonna do any good or not on Amazon I got this really cheap decibel meter it was just a few dollars and I got it several months ago for this specific reason I wanted to be able to test the ambient noise in this room before and after I insulate the ceiling so let's check out the ambient volume as it is right now in total silence that's our baseline with nothing happening upstairs no insulation and nothing happening in this room in a minute I want to test it with my kids talking and running around upstairs to get another baseline for that then after we get the ceiling up in the room pretty much finished we'll test it again to see what changed this stuff is called raxil safe and sound I've never used it before I just heard good recommendations from people so I thought I'd try it out not sponsor or anything this is not a thermal insulation is just for fire and soundproofing and they're just big bats that go in between the joists they look really easy to put in so I'm just gonna slide those in the joists but my kids just got home from school so let's check the ambient noise in here now these bats just slid up in between the joists like any other type of insulation I wasn't wearing a long-sleeve shirt here in my arms did get a little bit itchy but this is not made of fiberglass so it didn't each me long term like normal fiberglass insulation would this took me about an hour to get up and then I removed all of the nails from the previous drywall at this point I was still thinking about adding drywall again I've got the insulation up in the ceiling it's all ready to go and I have all of the electrical work done I didn't show you any of that because it's just kind of out of the scope of this video but the next step is to cut a giant hole in that wall we've got to cut out some two by fours in drywall but first we have to make a header to support the weight of that wall let's do that now to make up this header I cut down two pieces of 2 by 10 to the right length and then some half-inch plywood to the same length as well I didn't have one piece that was the same size so I kind of pieced it together and ended up with the thickness that was the same as a 2x4 this will make it fit within the framing I glued all of these pieces together and then clamp them to hold them nice and flat and used a framing nailer to drive in some three inch nails to make this one solid piece this is way overkill for this particular instance but better safe than sorry by the way this wall is not load-bearing if it was I would definitely have to reinforce it before I started taking stuff out I measured up from the floor and marked each one of these studs where they need to be cut off and I also transferred that line to the wall so that I can cut the drywall at the same location I did this on the top and the bottom so next I got to cut out the drywall and then the studs anytime you cut drywall it's a really good idea to make a very shallow cut with a utility knife and then break it along that line that score helps make a nice clean break I got all of the drywall scored and then used a reciprocating saw to cut through all of the studs once I got all of these cut the whole thing just kind of lifted out in mostly one piece I knocked off those remaining pieces at the top and then started building out the new frame there's a bunch of different ways to do this but in this case I used one 2x4 to act as the sill and then attached it to the top of the existing two by fours I added a Jack stud which is just another 2x4 on the sides to tie it into the king stud which are the ones that are still in place from before another jack stud goes on top of the sill and is tied into the king set as well this makes it ready to put in the header I lifted the header in place a couple of times and had to trim it a little bit to get it to fit and then eventually had to get up my big hammer to knock it into place this thing was really heavy and it would be way easier if you had somebody helping you out I was just on my own that day a little muscle and I got it in place somehow I lost my footage of putting up the drywall but I put drywall on two walls primed and painted it and then on the back wall I added these four by eight whiteboard panels so I can draw and sketch and keep lists it'll be a great work surface for ideas next it was time to finish out the opening for the window I just cut down four pieces of one by four to fit in there and held them in place these are tight enough to stay there on their own but I used some Brad's to hold them in place permanently I used some casing around the outside of this to make it look like an actual framed window I've got the frame for the window in place and I went back and filled all the nail holes with some filler and while I'm waiting on that to dry I'm gonna start on the ceiling now instead of doing drywall I'm actually gonna put in a drop ceiling which is something I never thought I would do but it actually makes the most sense here drywall is a little bit hard to put on the ceiling by yourself unless you have a lift and it transfers sound from the room above pretty well I don't want that I want to try to dampen the sound and a drop ceiling should help with that at least a little bit the tiles I'm going to use our acoustic tile so that should dampen some of it but also the ceiling itself will be kind of suspended which should cut down on vibrations carrying through the floor into the ceiling to get started doing the ceiling I have to mount a little L track all the way around and then drop a grid on the inside of it I didn't have a simple way to attach this L bracket to two sides of the room so I took a piece of one by four and hung it from the joist I made sure these were level so that once I had these in place the L bracket could sit right against the bottom edge I did leave a little gap here and that's in case in the future I want to run a line from this box down this wall so I can have a receptacle below these tracks are made of really thin metal so you can use just about any screw to attach them to just about any surface the important thing is that they are all level and at the same distance from the ceiling with them in place I measured along the too far walls every two feet and made a mark these marks let you put in the main connector pieces from end to end I got this little kit that came with some nice clamps and a string and it came with tools like this to help you drive in the hangers you put in these hangers every couple of feet along the level line and make sure that they're at the same height from the ceiling and then this is a place that you can tie in a piece of wire you cut that off and then use it to hang the main hangers from end to end these pieces are called main tees and they're hung every two feet across the shortest wall in the room these cross pieces have connectors on each end and they snap right into the sides of the main tees you can do these every two feet or four feet or any gap that you want the grid is all in place and now it's time to put the acoustic tiles up in there but one thing really quickly my grid is pretty close to the ceiling the research that I did said you had to leave at least three inches in between the joist and your grid and I went with three and a half thinking that that would be enough I did get one tile in as a test but the danger of having them close together is that you don't have enough room to wiggle the tile up in and drop it down into the grid you can end up damaging the tile if you don't have enough room so when you're doing this make sure you leave enough room to be able to get them up in there or make sure you leave one of the Cross braces out so that you have enough room to slide tiles up over it most of these will drop right in place but if you have to make some smaller ones they cut very easily with a utility knife the ceiling is mostly in place so now it's time for the window instead of a big piece of glass I'm going to use a really big piece of acrylic it is more expensive but there are a few reasons that I'm using it this piece of acrylic is way lighter and easier to lift up here by myself but the biggest reason is that that room out there is gonna eventually be a place that my kids are going to play and hang out and who knows what's gonna come flying at this window having a big piece of acrylic is just the safer way to go now I am kind of going for the overall look of a control room in an audio studio but I'm not trying to recreate those windows are soundproof they're built in a very specific way to stop sound transfer that's not what I'm doing here at all I really just want to let light through a big opening in the wall installing one of these is really simple I've done it before and it worked out great let's do it I drew a line on the inside of the window from edge to edge as a point of reference then I cut some pieces of quarter around with miters on the ends that would fit on the inside of my window frame I line these up with the line that I had drawn and then nailed them in place with a brad nailer it doesn't matter what side you do but you want to make sure that you put all four pieces in facing one direction first I cut down my acrylic on the table saw to match the final dimensions of the opening then I set the acrylic into the window frame up against the first set of trim that I put in and then sandwiched it with another set of trim on the inside of the window there's plastic on both sides of this acrylic that you have to pull off and that's easier to do before you put the trim on I found these really cool LED panels that drop right into the ceiling and they are super bright that's about it for this room I've got a few more things I need to do clean up some trim but I got the window painted I got pretty much everything functional I want to show you the whole thing I'll move it around it with the tripod here you can kind of see it looks entirely different than it did before but the last big test to do in here is to see if the soundproofing stuff worked at all I have no idea if it did or not first let's check out the ambient sound to see how it is compared to what it was before so it is a little bit lower not a whole lot but there's not a lot of sound anyway so that shouldn't change a whole lot what's really gonna matter is when the kids are directly above me like they were before so let me go get them in place they are actually singing right above me there's four kids singing a song together it's way way better now I can still hear their feet rumbling a little bit you can hear that base of the impact but the overall voice and the singing and all the high frequency stuff seems to be almost completely gone that's purely from a decibel standpoint a microphone may pick up different stuff and so we'll have to see how it actually plays out when I'm recording a voiceover or audio or podcast or whatever but it did make a really big improvement one more word on that insulation though there's no particular evidence that I've found that says any type of insulation is more soundproofing than any other type there are a lot of soundproofing methods but a lot of people say that regular old pink insulation does a pretty good job on its own I just wanted to show you what I used take it as you will so this office conversion is just about finished now I have to actually build the desk move everything in and get it organized and I have an entire room over there that I have to clean up as well so I'm going to get to that work if you want to see some more videos I have lots of other projects that you may be interested in so be sure to check those out and don't forget to subscribe that's it for this one guys thanks for watching I'll see you next timehey I'm Bob and I like to make stuff today we're going to turn this storage room into my new office this is my storage room and it's going to be my office very soon but there's a huge amount of work to get it there I've got stud walls with drywall no insulation so I have to finish the outside of these I've got air conditioning ducts that hang down and lower the ceiling I've got these awful lights I have to take down I've got concrete walls I've got to work around my shop is on the other side of that wall and on the other side of this wall is a big room with some windows so to get some of that light into this room we're going to knock a big hole in that wall and put in a window let's get to it and also I just got new glasses and I don't have to wear them all the time but they do work really well as safety glasses I ended up just dragging these into my shop to use for storage and then just started ripping apart all of the old shelving that was in the storage room I saved a lot of this wood and tried to reuse it in other places took down the old lights and then started ripping off the old sheetrock from the ceiling it was unfinished and pretty easy to do the reason I took down the drywall off the ceiling is because our living room is right up there there's gonna be a lot of foot traffic and a lot of conversation up there and I want to try to dampen that sound transfer as much as possible I took that down so I could put insulation up there before I put the drywall back but first I want to get a baseline for how loud it is in here so that we can figure out whether it's actually gonna do any good or not on Amazon I got this really cheap decibel meter it was just a few dollars and I got it several months ago for this specific reason I wanted to be able to test the ambient noise in this room before and after I insulate the ceiling so let's check out the ambient volume as it is right now in total silence that's our baseline with nothing happening upstairs no insulation and nothing happening in this room in a minute I want to test it with my kids talking and running around upstairs to get another baseline for that then after we get the ceiling up in the room pretty much finished we'll test it again to see what changed this stuff is called raxil safe and sound I've never used it before I just heard good recommendations from people so I thought I'd try it out not sponsor or anything this is not a thermal insulation is just for fire and soundproofing and they're just big bats that go in between the joists they look really easy to put in so I'm just gonna slide those in the joists but my kids just got home from school so let's check the ambient noise in here now these bats just slid up in between the joists like any other type of insulation I wasn't wearing a long-sleeve shirt here in my arms did get a little bit itchy but this is not made of fiberglass so it didn't each me long term like normal fiberglass insulation would this took me about an hour to get up and then I removed all of the nails from the previous drywall at this point I was still thinking about adding drywall again I've got the insulation up in the ceiling it's all ready to go and I have all of the electrical work done I didn't show you any of that because it's just kind of out of the scope of this video but the next step is to cut a giant hole in that wall we've got to cut out some two by fours in drywall but first we have to make a header to support the weight of that wall let's do that now to make up this header I cut down two pieces of 2 by 10 to the right length and then some half-inch plywood to the same length as well I didn't have one piece that was the same size so I kind of pieced it together and ended up with the thickness that was the same as a 2x4 this will make it fit within the framing I glued all of these pieces together and then clamp them to hold them nice and flat and used a framing nailer to drive in some three inch nails to make this one solid piece this is way overkill for this particular instance but better safe than sorry by the way this wall is not load-bearing if it was I would definitely have to reinforce it before I started taking stuff out I measured up from the floor and marked each one of these studs where they need to be cut off and I also transferred that line to the wall so that I can cut the drywall at the same location I did this on the top and the bottom so next I got to cut out the drywall and then the studs anytime you cut drywall it's a really good idea to make a very shallow cut with a utility knife and then break it along that line that score helps make a nice clean break I got all of the drywall scored and then used a reciprocating saw to cut through all of the studs once I got all of these cut the whole thing just kind of lifted out in mostly one piece I knocked off those remaining pieces at the top and then started building out the new frame there's a bunch of different ways to do this but in this case I used one 2x4 to act as the sill and then attached it to the top of the existing two by fours I added a Jack stud which is just another 2x4 on the sides to tie it into the king stud which are the ones that are still in place from before another jack stud goes on top of the sill and is tied into the king set as well this makes it ready to put in the header I lifted the header in place a couple of times and had to trim it a little bit to get it to fit and then eventually had to get up my big hammer to knock it into place this thing was really heavy and it would be way easier if you had somebody helping you out I was just on my own that day a little muscle and I got it in place somehow I lost my footage of putting up the drywall but I put drywall on two walls primed and painted it and then on the back wall I added these four by eight whiteboard panels so I can draw and sketch and keep lists it'll be a great work surface for ideas next it was time to finish out the opening for the window I just cut down four pieces of one by four to fit in there and held them in place these are tight enough to stay there on their own but I used some Brad's to hold them in place permanently I used some casing around the outside of this to make it look like an actual framed window I've got the frame for the window in place and I went back and filled all the nail holes with some filler and while I'm waiting on that to dry I'm gonna start on the ceiling now instead of doing drywall I'm actually gonna put in a drop ceiling which is something I never thought I would do but it actually makes the most sense here drywall is a little bit hard to put on the ceiling by yourself unless you have a lift and it transfers sound from the room above pretty well I don't want that I want to try to dampen the sound and a drop ceiling should help with that at least a little bit the tiles I'm going to use our acoustic tile so that should dampen some of it but also the ceiling itself will be kind of suspended which should cut down on vibrations carrying through the floor into the ceiling to get started doing the ceiling I have to mount a little L track all the way around and then drop a grid on the inside of it I didn't have a simple way to attach this L bracket to two sides of the room so I took a piece of one by four and hung it from the joist I made sure these were level so that once I had these in place the L bracket could sit right against the bottom edge I did leave a little gap here and that's in case in the future I want to run a line from this box down this wall so I can have a receptacle below these tracks are made of really thin metal so you can use just about any screw to attach them to just about any surface the important thing is that they are all level and at the same distance from the ceiling with them in place I measured along the too far walls every two feet and made a mark these marks let you put in the main connector pieces from end to end I got this little kit that came with some nice clamps and a string and it came with tools like this to help you drive in the hangers you put in these hangers every couple of feet along the level line and make sure that they're at the same height from the ceiling and then this is a place that you can tie in a piece of wire you cut that off and then use it to hang the main hangers from end to end these pieces are called main tees and they're hung every two feet across the shortest wall in the room these cross pieces have connectors on each end and they snap right into the sides of the main tees you can do these every two feet or four feet or any gap that you want the grid is all in place and now it's time to put the acoustic tiles up in there but one thing really quickly my grid is pretty close to the ceiling the research that I did said you had to leave at least three inches in between the joist and your grid and I went with three and a half thinking that that would be enough I did get one tile in as a test but the danger of having them close together is that you don't have enough room to wiggle the tile up in and drop it down into the grid you can end up damaging the tile if you don't have enough room so when you're doing this make sure you leave enough room to be able to get them up in there or make sure you leave one of the Cross braces out so that you have enough room to slide tiles up over it most of these will drop right in place but if you have to make some smaller ones they cut very easily with a utility knife the ceiling is mostly in place so now it's time for the window instead of a big piece of glass I'm going to use a really big piece of acrylic it is more expensive but there are a few reasons that I'm using it this piece of acrylic is way lighter and easier to lift up here by myself but the biggest reason is that that room out there is gonna eventually be a place that my kids are going to play and hang out and who knows what's gonna come flying at this window having a big piece of acrylic is just the safer way to go now I am kind of going for the overall look of a control room in an audio studio but I'm not trying to recreate those windows are soundproof they're built in a very specific way to stop sound transfer that's not what I'm doing here at all I really just want to let light through a big opening in the wall installing one of these is really simple I've done it before and it worked out great let's do it I drew a line on the inside of the window from edge to edge as a point of reference then I cut some pieces of quarter around with miters on the ends that would fit on the inside of my window frame I line these up with the line that I had drawn and then nailed them in place with a brad nailer it doesn't matter what side you do but you want to make sure that you put all four pieces in facing one direction first I cut down my acrylic on the table saw to match the final dimensions of the opening then I set the acrylic into the window frame up against the first set of trim that I put in and then sandwiched it with another set of trim on the inside of the window there's plastic on both sides of this acrylic that you have to pull off and that's easier to do before you put the trim on I found these really cool LED panels that drop right into the ceiling and they are super bright that's about it for this room I've got a few more things I need to do clean up some trim but I got the window painted I got pretty much everything functional I want to show you the whole thing I'll move it around it with the tripod here you can kind of see it looks entirely different than it did before but the last big test to do in here is to see if the soundproofing stuff worked at all I have no idea if it did or not first let's check out the ambient sound to see how it is compared to what it was before so it is a little bit lower not a whole lot but there's not a lot of sound anyway so that shouldn't change a whole lot what's really gonna matter is when the kids are directly above me like they were before so let me go get them in place they are actually singing right above me there's four kids singing a song together it's way way better now I can still hear their feet rumbling a little bit you can hear that base of the impact but the overall voice and the singing and all the high frequency stuff seems to be almost completely gone that's purely from a decibel standpoint a microphone may pick up different stuff and so we'll have to see how it actually plays out when I'm recording a voiceover or audio or podcast or whatever but it did make a really big improvement one more word on that insulation though there's no particular evidence that I've found that says any type of insulation is more soundproofing than any other type there are a lot of soundproofing methods but a lot of people say that regular old pink insulation does a pretty good job on its own I just wanted to show you what I used take it as you will so this office conversion is just about finished now I have to actually build the desk move everything in and get it organized and I have an entire room over there that I have to clean up as well so I'm going to get to that work if you want to see some more videos I have lots of other projects that you may be interested in so be sure to check those out and don't forget to subscribe that's it for this one guys thanks for watching I'll see you next time\n"