Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Fabric for room treatment

Tomorrow I am building a couple of frames for some wall treatments. I am going to look around town but I have a pretty specific idea of what I want as far as a pattern. I am not into flowers and unicorns, I want something music related. I will look around town tomorrow but I fear the selection will be limited. What I need to know is if I order online what sort of fabric am I looking for, I don't want burlap lol. Is there a specific type of fabric I can look for by name. If I have it in my hand it wont be a problem, as I have a good idea what I want.
Richard

I would like to help you out on this one but really, it is hard when you may not have access to shops that sell lots of fabrics. Having a local store that carries fabrics to browse around makes it so much easier to generate ideas.
Of course you could do alot of internet searching with topics like "music", "home theatre curtains", etc. but it is kind of essential to see a sample of the fabric in your hands.

We looked around at Fabricland, Home Sense, Home Outfitters and Jysk for curtains pre-made plus other fabrics. Ultimately for the main floor we bought pre-made curtains but for the media room the spouse sewed some heavy duty, dark blue velour with some neat fleur de lis clips for the top.
The heavy weight not only blocks out light but acts as a great reflection reducer over the glass french doors.

Kind of like this:

What kind of treatments? I'll assume absorbtion. For wideband absorbtion any knitted material will do. Cotton, polyester etc. For covering diffusers or making covers for speaker locations acoustically transparent is wanted. Avoid vinyl or other non-permeable material. These will reflect higher frequencies.

A note of advice, I went with a fabric with a sheen to it my first go around. It was on sale. This became distracting during bright movie scenes. It also showed flaws in the lumpy bumpy roxul behind. Matte fabric would be my choice in future projects.

Thanks guys. I guess I will venture downtown and see what I can find. I looked online and found a few that suited my taste, I will see what fabrics I like and then try to replicate that online. Something along these lines maybe

Nick discovered and shared spoonflower.com and it seems really grat for variety.

You can search fabric by keywords there and prints are constantly contributed by textile hobbyists.

Thanks , I did some digging and found some fabric I like but it comes out of the US and the exchange rate is working against me right now.

Whoa Bob, are they really that bad. I am about as straight as a guy can get, not even like allan on 2 and half men LOL . I was going to share what I ended up with but I fear I will be rebuffed.

LOL, Richard!!! Yeah, I knew that!

I just think they're a bit distracting. Also, you'll find an infinitely larger fabric variety if you go solid, no pattern. The heavier the better. Drapery/Upholstery fabric is what you want and buy only from someone who will send you an actual swatch if you buy online.

Wild patterns are what pillows are for. When you get sick of 'em, you can change the whole feel of the room with a trip to Target or Home Goods. Gawd, I'm getting gayer as I age.

Good luck, whatever you decide.

BTW, the guitar thing is soooo pissah, I'd be willing to listen with my eyes closed for that. Well, for a while. Again, cool pillows.

Bob , my room is so very bland and I don't do art so this is going to have to suffice as art. I got some fabric coming and if I don't like it I can take it to the ladies at the quilting center LOL. In town they want 20bux a yard and I got it online for 10 bux so even with shipping and exchange its way cheaper. I went with cotton since I did 2 that go behind my curtains with old bed sheets and it was easy to work with. I will share the finished product when I get my material and you can pissahhh all you want to

Yes and we've found a few materials for a kitchen reno that are much cheaper out of the US as well. Luckily for us, even though the Cdn dollar is down, we can have it shipped to a location that provides this specific service about 1h from here at the border and bring the materials across ourselves.
No brokerage fee and can shop from any US store even if they don't ship to Canada by using this parcel address service.
Cheap and really handy.

I know that the exchange rate isn't working out so well for you, but some of the ideas are still good and I have heard of other sites, in Canada, that offer a similar service. I just have never seen or tested their products, and I have no idea if they are even cost effective.

Here is the discussion thread over at AVS. About 1/3 of the way in, I started taking over as the resident expert. That is about the time that Spoonflower started adding some great new fabric choices with colors and blacks that aren't washed out like the original fabric that people talk about in there.

I also do Photoshopping services for free (you want to have the image the exact size and dimensions before having someone print it (if you go that route).

As mentioned, for absorption panels, you would be surprised at home many different types of material works. You should be able to go with just about any woven fabric. Diffusion is a different story and you really need the fabric tested to make sure it will work.

Anyway, the thread is:
DIY Custom-Printed Acoustical Panels - CHEAP!

Thanks for the link Nick that looks like an interesting possibility to look into. I would take me some time to just figure out what I would want on the print. I will see how I like this fabric and if it too garish I will have to rethink things.For my frames I bought some 8ft spruce 1x2's and with the leftover I made corner braces and screwed it together with drywall screws, quick and simple and cheap. I am using Roxul safe and sound 2ft by 4ft by 2in and I like the effect so far. I have 2 on each wall and will put one up behind the speakers and TV.

Richard

Here is my process for my room treatment panels

I made these frames from 1x2 fir and made small corner braces to hold the Roxul in place.



Next I laid the fabric face down on the kitchen table so it was square and flat




I then laid the frame on the fabric and centered it.



I folded the fabric around the frame on one side and used thumbtacks on the inside of the frame.



Once the fabric is stretched and tacked in I lay the roxul into the frame which is a tight friction fit



The finished product



And hanging on the wall.



Not sure if there too gay or not I will wait and get Bobs seal of approval

Nice work! They turned out nice. Not sure about their gayness but they dont appear to be hung very straight. . (Had to squeeze a joke on somehow.)

Yeah they are hung a bit crooked but they still work. I don't own a level and this whole house is crooked, even the toilet leans to the right. The material came from Fabric.com in the US and the quality is excellent and cost half what I would have paid in town.

I'm trying to picture you perched on your leaning toilet seat & it ain't pretty...

TAM

Cool! You went with the guitars!

Come on Bob you can critique better than that. I can take it honestly. I am a single guy with ZERO ability to decorate, cars computers etc is my forte . My whole house looks like an Ogre lives there LOL. I will see if they are distracting when I watch the next movie. I can always go with some monotone colors. On the upside the room sounds so much better , there are 2 more opposite those ones but wrapped in old sheets behind curtains and one more to the right up behind the TV. I listened to Zenyatta Mondatta on SACD that arrived yesterday and it was glorious.

My biggest concern is falling through the floor. The 4" waste pipe has black tape around a leak .

When Bob holds back, you know its not good.

Damn, hangs head in shame and goes to fabric store.

I may go the route Nick went if I can find some decent hi-rez pics of say van halen or metallica.

http://www.allposters.ca/-st/Metallica-Fabric-Posters-posters_c94866_.htm

http://www.amazon.com/30x40-Metallica-Justice-Fabric-Poster/dp/B000EOFH3W

The review on Amazon said the fabric was "very poor", hopefully that's what we would call "acoustically transparent".

I was just funnin ya. If you like them, you're good to go. If you could get the individual guitar patterns from that 3rd picture blown up so there was on guitar per panel and you had multiple panels per wall, that would make a cool theme for your room.

No worries fred, Bobs short reply speaks volumes He already poo poo'd my choice. I was in a hurry to get them up on the wall. The first ones I covered are covered by old bed sheets. I used thumbtack's so I can change if I find something that really peaks my interest later on.