Music Room Remodel: Week 1

One of the projects for this year that I am most excited about is our music room renovation.  This has been a long time coming, and I am thoroughly enjoying the process.

Until now, I have been using a sofa table as a desk in a poorly lit, dark room that is actually just a finished attic space.  While I cannot change the size of the room, I can work on everything else.

My original "Music Room"

Thankful for having a dedicated space to practice and create in, I have always felt that I was simply adapting to someone else's space:

The room was painted by the previous owners who did the room in light brown with a dark blue wall.  Now that we've been in the house a few years and the higher priority projects have been completed, it is finally time to make this space my own.

A few items to note before starting: 

- The wall slopes from eight to six-feet

- Florescent lighting

- Dark colors

One of the things we've been doing in general is to bring color back to the house, as most everything was brown and dark-stained wood.  So deciding on the paint colors took quite a bit of time.  First things first though, was to cover the dark colors with a white primer.  BTW, painting textured walls can be a real PIA!

And after two gallons of primer and a few days of work:

Part of my vision in this project is to provide this finished attic-space with a sense that it is a room with purpose.  So I decided to add some additional visual elements such as a chair rail.  For this I purchased an inexpensive laser level from the hardware store. 

Next move was to remove the old fluorescents, and bring in my old Craftsman flood lights since the room doesn't have any natural lighting:

The old fluorescent lighting gave off a lot of heat, emitted a buzzing noise, and the light tubes were dying with an annoying fluttering that would often result in no light whatsoever.  Originally, I wanted to replace them with a pair of those long, straight bars of small LED lamps.  However, after getting advice from folks at our local lighting store I decided to go with fewer lights that hang closer to the slanted ceiling-- which is important for a tall guy such as myself (!)

Today, (beginning week-2) was spent ordering parts that will enable me to hang my guitars/basses on the walls-- something I've never before had the nerve to do-- and searching for new musical-themed prints to hang on the wall.  It is surprising how little I can find, and this is in the days of the World-Wide-Web.  For example, try finding a poster or 8x10 of Booker T and the MG's-- they are as rare as hens-teeth!  Not all was lost, as I did find a few other prints, though I continue to search...

Tomorrow I will tape off the the walls again to start working on the lower section, source chair rail material and paint it before cutting in a day or two. 

This should be a fun and productive week!

Stay tuned and in tune!