1476 played a great set, and contacted me afterwards wanting to get a copy of the gig. I listened, did some tweaking and a quick and dirty mix, and sent the set off to them. It was a great performance, they are a duo of an acoustic guitar/singer and a drummer and have a very full sound, good songs with great arrangements and a singer I believe (I’m notoriously picky about singers… heh).

Everything ended up working out well enough that they had the set pressed to CD, and gave a copy away with the first round of orders for their new EP. I just got my copy of it today, and it’s cool!

Here’s a sound sample, a track called “When The Curtain Falls”:

As a reminder, here’s what I began with:

And here’s what it looks like now, after a year and a half of (very) part-time work:

From a different angle, including where the side door used to be:

And a closeup of the new front door, with the trimwork installed:

And finally, a view from inside, showing the new door install with the framing:

The new siding on the outside is much lighter in color than the rest of the siding, but once it ages for a year or so it will be a much closer match. You can already see the shed, which was installed last year, looks very close to the garage.

This is very exciting, lots of visible progress.

Next steps: real electricity into the garage. Need to get the trench dug before the ground freezes. Also, I have to “beef up” the outer shell, especially on the side that faces the house. This step will be the first step that does not follow conventional construction techniques and instead uses techniques specifically designed for stopping sound. I’ll be sure to document this carefully!

Once the beefup is done, it will be time to insulate the garage.

I made a mistake somewhere in the framing, visible in the above pic. Can you spot it? Just have to fix that mistake (quick), then lock down the framing, do the trim work, remove the garage door, install the front door, then I’m done with this step.

Next step was to remove the side door. Did that today. I still need to put the trim work up, but here is what it looks like from the outside:

On the left is the trash bin I had to build a while back (can’t store trash in the studio). In the middle you can see the now-plugged doorway, and on the right is the door I removed. I will most likely re-use this door for the outside of the studio (outer leaf). It will be beefed up a bit for security.

From the inside, the old doorway now looks like this:

That’s the doorway, with new framing and a new cut piece of siding, toward the right where the side door used to be. You can still see the open garage door; that’s next.

Next step: remove the garage door, frame up the opening, install the side door in its place, and then finally put more siding in place to cover it up. Once this is done, it will be time to beef up and insulate the outer shell. Also, need to get electricity into the garage before winter hits. Not much time left!

Managed to finish up just in time for a beautiful sunset through my woods:

A few observations: time and finances have necessitated a simplification of this build. It’s not going to be as elaborate as I’d first envisioned for several reasons, including the fact that we are kicking around the idea of moving.

More to follow….

First is an instrumental called Metsakukkia (Finnish for “forest flower”):

Second is a medley of some of their vocal songs:

Still working on the mixes, but I’ll have an audio sample up soon.

I’ll have more tabula rasa pictures of the garage soon….

The shelves are standard JWL wicked-solid functional shelves. Ready to hold stuff.

Next: build the doors. I have 4 old barn hinges (thanks Yo and Matt!), 2 of which aren’t flexible at the moment (rusted shut). I need to spend some time with them before I can use them for the doors.