Right, so after many years of considerations and no action, I decided it was time to get started on my crazy project to transform that ugly, low ceiling, basement located space into a proper music studio, home office, leisure room and dedicate a corner of that room to my saxophone repair work bench.
Why now? Simply because I have both the time and energy to do it, while before I lacked either one of them. It's not costing much money as I'm doing it all myself and using fairly low cost material, including using some stuff that I've accumulated over the years and leftover from other previous projects.
The tricky part of this exercise is that I'm doing it right under my wife nose without her knowledge or consent. In other words behind her back although she's there most of the time. Sneaking a few hundred kilos/pounds of wood, plaster, etc. under her nose has been entertaining!
I've tried to take advantage of her absence to make progress on the noisy elements of the project. Among others, I need to drill many holes in the walls, the ceiling, the floor! I also have to cut wood panels and battens for the floor and various supports to box the heating pipes and the electrical, network and sound cables. It's far from over yet and I've suffered a number of delays due to cancelled visits to stepmother or other.
I have to add that my wife has been grounded for several months for the wrong reasons. She currently works as a school teacher and was in sick leave after an injury early last year. She has now fully recovered and went back to her school end of august to prepare the new year, to learn on the first day that she had to go home and wait for her official re-instatement. She received a letter a few days later, dated august 22nd confirming after the facts that her sick leave was approved until October 6th and that she needed to send her request for re-instatement at least two months ahead, ie before the 6th of august! That's before the letter was sent... Since then she's sent registered letters after registered letters with various medical certificates attesting she was no longer sick, but the procedure failed to reach the same conclusion and extended her leave of absence twice, so now until April next year. The last notification even adding that from January she'll be earning only half her normal compensation! Nothing does it so far. So she decided to involve the Unions and suddenly things appear to be moving, slightly... It is absolutely Kafkaesque!
The good news for me is that she's leaving tomorrow for 4 days and I am ready to get things moving. I made some rather interesting progress over the last week, thanks to a couple of absence and now I'm hoping to finish flooring in the next few days. Icing on the cake, a friend has invited my wife to go to Rome for couple of days the following week. So I should be able to continue and perhaps be ready by Christmas time.
I'd like to make it a surprise! TADA!!!
Once the ground work is completed and the space is clean and comfortable, I'll probably ask many questions with regards to equipment. Not so much for sax, but two of my sons are pianists and I fancy buying a portable/electric piano/synthesizer as it would be unpractical if not completely impossible to take our current piano downstairs. Also, I'm quite sure my sons would love to play using other sounds... One is also playing electric guitar, so there's going to be a requirement for proper amplification for both instruments.
I'll post images once it starts to look interesting. Maybe the end of next week!
Why now? Simply because I have both the time and energy to do it, while before I lacked either one of them. It's not costing much money as I'm doing it all myself and using fairly low cost material, including using some stuff that I've accumulated over the years and leftover from other previous projects.
The tricky part of this exercise is that I'm doing it right under my wife nose without her knowledge or consent. In other words behind her back although she's there most of the time. Sneaking a few hundred kilos/pounds of wood, plaster, etc. under her nose has been entertaining!
I've tried to take advantage of her absence to make progress on the noisy elements of the project. Among others, I need to drill many holes in the walls, the ceiling, the floor! I also have to cut wood panels and battens for the floor and various supports to box the heating pipes and the electrical, network and sound cables. It's far from over yet and I've suffered a number of delays due to cancelled visits to stepmother or other.
I have to add that my wife has been grounded for several months for the wrong reasons. She currently works as a school teacher and was in sick leave after an injury early last year. She has now fully recovered and went back to her school end of august to prepare the new year, to learn on the first day that she had to go home and wait for her official re-instatement. She received a letter a few days later, dated august 22nd confirming after the facts that her sick leave was approved until October 6th and that she needed to send her request for re-instatement at least two months ahead, ie before the 6th of august! That's before the letter was sent... Since then she's sent registered letters after registered letters with various medical certificates attesting she was no longer sick, but the procedure failed to reach the same conclusion and extended her leave of absence twice, so now until April next year. The last notification even adding that from January she'll be earning only half her normal compensation! Nothing does it so far. So she decided to involve the Unions and suddenly things appear to be moving, slightly... It is absolutely Kafkaesque!
The good news for me is that she's leaving tomorrow for 4 days and I am ready to get things moving. I made some rather interesting progress over the last week, thanks to a couple of absence and now I'm hoping to finish flooring in the next few days. Icing on the cake, a friend has invited my wife to go to Rome for couple of days the following week. So I should be able to continue and perhaps be ready by Christmas time.
I'd like to make it a surprise! TADA!!!
Once the ground work is completed and the space is clean and comfortable, I'll probably ask many questions with regards to equipment. Not so much for sax, but two of my sons are pianists and I fancy buying a portable/electric piano/synthesizer as it would be unpractical if not completely impossible to take our current piano downstairs. Also, I'm quite sure my sons would love to play using other sounds... One is also playing electric guitar, so there's going to be a requirement for proper amplification for both instruments.
I'll post images once it starts to look interesting. Maybe the end of next week!
