My basement is sparsely furnished with ceramic tiles, small area rug, no windows and no curtains. Basically a very bright box in terms of acoustics. The highs are painfully piercing your ears and need to be adjusted every time I turn the stereo on. Similar situation with the TV while watching movies. Since there are no windows, I cannot add curtains which would be the easiest thing to do. I also do not want to put wall to wall carpeting. While browsing the internet, I came across a DIY acoustic panels that people put together with materials like towels and fabric. I had tons of empty wall space so I figured I will give it a shot. One thing I knew is that I do not want some boring pattern or solid color panels hanging every couple of feet. So I started searching for a nice canvas prints and found some very inexpensive ones on Ebay shipped from China. Here is what I bought. If I remember correctly, each print is 24″ x 36″ and cost me less than $7 shipped.
But before we even get to this point, here is what I had to do.
After measuring the prints, I have created three wooden frames from a 1×2 piece of inexpensive pine. Frames were about 1/2″ smaller on each side than the prints. Each of the prints were then stretched and stapled onto the frame. I did not want to lose too much of the print so the canvas only stretches to the sides and doesn’t go all the way to the back of the frame.
For each of the frames I have purchased two cheap white towels at Walmart. Three were bath towels and the other three bath sheets (bigger than towels). I have used the bath towel to fill the inside of the frame and the bath sheet to do two more layers on top of the frame.
All three frames had now three layers of towels plus the layer of printed canvas on top.
Now, for the final touch, I have created three more frames that would go on the outside and cover the staples and bare wood. I have decided to make those deeper than the originals so the towels are nicely hidden. Easy to do but a time consuming affair as I wanted those frames to be stained black and clear coated. Each application took a day to apply and dry. Here is the outside frame in bare wood.
And stained with a black stain.
We are almost done. The canvas with a frame slide into the black external frames and I just used four small brad nails on each side to attach the frames together. Sorry for the crappy back but I have not stained the frames where they would touch the wall. You can even see the mounting hook installed on the back of the frame.
And here is the final result.
I am pretty happy with the visual outcome. As to the sound absorbing or cancelling features, the three panels helped a lot. Again, this is not a scientifically designed sound treatment by any means. Just a simple way of making the room a bit more acoustically friendly. I am also planning on adding a couch against one of the walls so with that, I should have a room acoustics similar to any furnished room. No more bright highs bouncing off empty walls.