After a few attempts at cutting the wood veneer panels for the music room, it was clear to me that the jig saw that I had was going to be a pain to use. In the end I literally just used a utility knife and I was able to make nice straight cuts along a metal yardstick. So much for power tools.

It was slow work, but I made my way around the room.

At one point I drastically errored in my outlet hole cut. It was too low, and if I made the hole big enough to accommodate the plug, the cover wouldn’t cover the hole. I had to put that panel aside.

As I used my panels up, and the closer I got to the home stretch, I realized I needed to use the panel with the bad hole. Sigh. I put it on a barely visible part of the alcove in the room and put a coax cable plate over the rectangular opening that was an infuriating inch too low. No one will ever know, except everyone who reads this. Ah well.

As I reached the closet, I paused and took a mental inventory of the panels I had left. It was going to be close. Come on man! Make it!

Ugh. Agony. So close.

Cindy agreed to pick me up one more from Madison as she passed by on her way home that night. I had it up the next day.

So it was on to the carpet. I dragged the remnant we had purchased into the room.

Almost immediately I learned 2 things. It was ALMOST big enough, and I suck at cutting carpet. Luckily, what I am good at is using scraps to fix my errors. No one will ever know. Well…   nevermind.

Then I started putting the chair rail on. Thankfully that part was easy.

Note the tiny part of the closet that the remnant did NOT cover. Hopefully a Kallax will be hiding that spot.

The final step, beside some paint touchups here and there, was to build the Music Room desk. This was the first official occupant of the room.

Done!

The Music Room exists!

I shot my first YouTube video for the Vinyl Community. Then watched it back and was appalled at the echoey sound. I guess an empty room bounces sound around a bit.

So I shot another little bit to apologize and explain.

Then I brought in a stereo. It’s a bit of a tribute to Dalton. I stacked his record player cabinet on top of an old black TV cabinet for the perfect height stereo rack. I also brought in his record player and speakers. My receiver and assorted other components filled up some of the rest. The final configuration is in flux, but it’s a start. I also stuck my front load record player under Dalton’s. SO COOL.

I put the reel-to-reel on the corner speaker and fired up the receiver and played the record that was on Dalton’s turntable from when I was working in the basement on another project. Coat rack.

What music goes great with woodworking?

“Adam Ants – Strip”

Which I must admit, until this very moment it didn’t really register with me that this was a solo album. No Ants. Interesting. I played this over and over, despite having every album I own in crates not 2 feet away. This one was just exactly what I needed.

At any rate, with the stereo in, I decided to do another addendum to my YouTube video to show off the equipment. The sound was better.

So that was the start of my YouTube channel.

Now you can follow me and see updates to the room as I add more stuff and I can do some things visually that I couldn’t on my blog.

Now I can be a music nerd in various formats.

Hooray 21st century!