So I’ve been looking at getting room treatments for my living room. But Professional panels are expensive and the foam squares from Amazon kind suck. So… DIY it?
The quality panels you can get from places like GIK Acoustics or Music City are essentially just a fancy enclosure filled with mineral wool or something similar. Since that’s readily available at my local Lowe’s I figured it couldn’t be to hard. Everything I needed to build these I either already had or got from Lowe’s with the exception of the fabric which I got from Hobby Lobby.
Results first:
3 of the six, one of each color.
Mounted on the wall
Tools:
You’ll need: Saw, Stapler, Scissors, Power Drill
Materials:
Lumber 2x4x92 Fir wall studs, $40 for 12
Rockwool insulation, $54 for 12 bats These are the 3in thick kind. If you want to trap lower frequencies you can buy thicker 5.5 inch bats or double stack these one in front of the other. Though you’ll need to build a thicker frame using 2x6 planks.
Fabric. $210 for 30 feet of this fabric. I could almost definitely find cheaper fabric.
Wood screws 8x3, $5
Hanging hardware, <1$
Process:
Cut your lumber to size, I chose 33.5x50 inches because that fits 2 rockwool bats side by side. Remember to account for the thickness of the frame itself.
Screw the corners together. 3 screws per corner seemed sturdy enough.
Lay the fabric out on a table and place the frame on top of it. Cut it to length then staple the edges to the back side of the frame.
Cut and tuck fabric under itself to form neat corners.
The rockwool simply layers in place. Since they insulation and the lumber are both intended for wall construction the fit each other perfectly. The thickness is just right. Touching it is rather itchy though so maybe use gloves.
I’ll add a backing fabric to these later, but for now the insulation seems to stay in there pretty snuggly.
Attach mounting hardware.
