THE STUDIO: Part Two-F: DURING CONSTRUCTION

The next step, of course, is to finish the sheetrock. Fortunately, this is the one area of construction where I have had some training and experience. My career as a sheetrock finisher only lasted a couple months, back around 1972, until my boss tried to "sell me" his girlfriend for the night. That's the day I quit.

Once finishing work was done, I painted the whole room.

Deb and I attempted a form of "knock-down" ceiling texture to hide defects there. I mudded in the ceiling, Deb followed along behind making circular patterns with a long handled stippling brush, and after curing a few minutes I followed her with a wide blade mud knife, knocking down her patterns. It made for a thickly textured ceiling that pretty much hides any flaws, but the MLV's weight on the thinner sheetrock used in the ceiling caused a "pillowing" effect. (Notice the "bulges" in the ceiling?)

I added two ceiling fans with light kits to keep hard working musicians cool. Notice they have short blades? That's because the ceiling is slanted- and I could hang them up higher, and because guitarists tend to lift their guitar's necks up in the air when taking the guitar with strap on or off. Maybe they won't get hit!

I custom cut the floorboard trim pieces and finished them. Because of the waviness in the walls I had some big gaps between the trim and the wall. This was cured by stuffing fiberglass batt in the gaps and covering with caulk, then smoothing the caulk and touching up the walls a little.