frederic
New member
To further avoid desoldering old patch bays... (I know, I know...) I decided instead to remodel the stairwell under the vocal booth... something that's annoyed me for over a year and finally, I get to give it a basic makeover.
My studio has two access points... the side door(s) next to the console table which leads to the rest of the house, and this stairwell, which leads to a slate pathway that goes along the side of the garage, to the driveway.
So once the door is opened, this stairwell is the first thing that customers would see:
This is a picture looking down the stairs. You can see the large 2x12 the flip-floor sits on, the open-frame structure for the hallway light i started adding so people can see at the bottom of the stairs whether the floor is down or not, as well as the ugly, weird green color of the door (which was like that when I moved in 4+ years ago).
First step is to finish the electrical in the wall, so I can at least see what I am working on. Flashlights suck. First thing to do is drill holes, and snake wiring through. A little tough to see, but the thing sticking out of the wall above the light structure is a coat hanger
Now that the wire is up, I spliced it into the fixture, after mounting the trim ring on the inside of the wooden surface. Normally the mounting ring goes on the outside of the ceiling surface, however since I'll be applying carpeting and nails for the carpeting, I didn't want to nail into the metal housing. I'm not a lucky person. I do stuff like this
Here I've replaced the single switch, with a dual switch. The top switch controls the power feed to the vocal booth light just above, which generally I would leave on as I added a pull chain in the light fixture. The bottom switch controls the new stairwell light. The walls are covered with tongue and groove cedar paneling that has been eaten a bit by termites long before I moved here. I decided not to take it down out of laziness, and instead later on because I put on the wall covers, I'll chaulk the seams.
Finished lightswitch installation, and viola, let there be light!
.
Next, I tore out the dry-rotted rubber stair covering, which was put down long before I was born, with roofing nails of all things. Whoever did this job was a fooking idiot. One slightly yank on the rubber, and it tore like tissue paper. This resulted in several hours of scraping the stairs with paint scraper, then praying the roofing nails out with a long crowbar. The nails were all different types too. Some copper, some galvenized, some plain, some 4" long (???), so I have no idea what that was about. Glad to be rid of it.
I then polyurethaned the stairs even though the oak is a little beat up but I wanted to make sure if someone spilled soda or coffee on the stairwell it didn't ruin the wood. So once that dried... I got into carpeting.
And here is the view looking down after the first 1/2 day I put into carpeting the stairs.
And the next day I was up at about 5am carpeting because I had insomnia and decided to finish the stairwell:
I used a staplegun with long staples, figuring that would be just fine. Turned out not to be the best choice so I humped my air hose from the garage around the side, snapped on my brad nailer, and picked out all the stupid staples and bradded the carpet in. It's not going anywhere. Beats hammering carpet tacks on the inside ledge of the stairs. Much easier to turn the nailer upside down and pull the trigger. Kerchunk! Psssst! Click!
Now that the stairs are done, I decided to start carpeting the stairwell light. I really hate working over my head, especially while standing on a pair of old stereo speakers that are carefully balanced on the stairs - but hey - it worked and I didn't break my neck.... LMAO
And the finished product...
Then at the bottom of the stairs, I decided for the sake of "easy" and "enough of this crap already" I decided to recycle some left over flooring I had from a job I did for a neighbor... had 1 pack of beech pergo which somewhat matches the beech flooring I put in the studio, and somewhat matches the beige carpeting now on the stairs... so why the heck not
A few hours of trimming, gluing, packing, clamping, and so on:
The biggest problem with carpeting the stairs (and putting the flooring on the landing pad at the bottom), is none of this is square. The bottom step is 33-7/8" wide, and the top step is 32-1/8" wide. It's a gradual progression of "narrowness" as you go up the stairs. It's only about 3/4" of an inch difference, but if you don't figure out which way it narrows, and which side has more of the "cut" than the other, you end up with gaps at the edge of the carpet on the bottom, wider stairs.
Anyway, that was my day today pretty much.
My studio has two access points... the side door(s) next to the console table which leads to the rest of the house, and this stairwell, which leads to a slate pathway that goes along the side of the garage, to the driveway.
So once the door is opened, this stairwell is the first thing that customers would see:
This is a picture looking down the stairs. You can see the large 2x12 the flip-floor sits on, the open-frame structure for the hallway light i started adding so people can see at the bottom of the stairs whether the floor is down or not, as well as the ugly, weird green color of the door (which was like that when I moved in 4+ years ago).
First step is to finish the electrical in the wall, so I can at least see what I am working on. Flashlights suck. First thing to do is drill holes, and snake wiring through. A little tough to see, but the thing sticking out of the wall above the light structure is a coat hanger
Now that the wire is up, I spliced it into the fixture, after mounting the trim ring on the inside of the wooden surface. Normally the mounting ring goes on the outside of the ceiling surface, however since I'll be applying carpeting and nails for the carpeting, I didn't want to nail into the metal housing. I'm not a lucky person. I do stuff like this
Here I've replaced the single switch, with a dual switch. The top switch controls the power feed to the vocal booth light just above, which generally I would leave on as I added a pull chain in the light fixture. The bottom switch controls the new stairwell light. The walls are covered with tongue and groove cedar paneling that has been eaten a bit by termites long before I moved here. I decided not to take it down out of laziness, and instead later on because I put on the wall covers, I'll chaulk the seams.
Finished lightswitch installation, and viola, let there be light!
Next, I tore out the dry-rotted rubber stair covering, which was put down long before I was born, with roofing nails of all things. Whoever did this job was a fooking idiot. One slightly yank on the rubber, and it tore like tissue paper. This resulted in several hours of scraping the stairs with paint scraper, then praying the roofing nails out with a long crowbar. The nails were all different types too. Some copper, some galvenized, some plain, some 4" long (???), so I have no idea what that was about. Glad to be rid of it.
I then polyurethaned the stairs even though the oak is a little beat up but I wanted to make sure if someone spilled soda or coffee on the stairwell it didn't ruin the wood. So once that dried... I got into carpeting.
And here is the view looking down after the first 1/2 day I put into carpeting the stairs.
And the next day I was up at about 5am carpeting because I had insomnia and decided to finish the stairwell:
I used a staplegun with long staples, figuring that would be just fine. Turned out not to be the best choice so I humped my air hose from the garage around the side, snapped on my brad nailer, and picked out all the stupid staples and bradded the carpet in. It's not going anywhere. Beats hammering carpet tacks on the inside ledge of the stairs. Much easier to turn the nailer upside down and pull the trigger. Kerchunk! Psssst! Click!
Now that the stairs are done, I decided to start carpeting the stairwell light. I really hate working over my head, especially while standing on a pair of old stereo speakers that are carefully balanced on the stairs - but hey - it worked and I didn't break my neck.... LMAO
And the finished product...
Then at the bottom of the stairs, I decided for the sake of "easy" and "enough of this crap already" I decided to recycle some left over flooring I had from a job I did for a neighbor... had 1 pack of beech pergo which somewhat matches the beech flooring I put in the studio, and somewhat matches the beige carpeting now on the stairs... so why the heck not
A few hours of trimming, gluing, packing, clamping, and so on:
The biggest problem with carpeting the stairs (and putting the flooring on the landing pad at the bottom), is none of this is square. The bottom step is 33-7/8" wide, and the top step is 32-1/8" wide. It's a gradual progression of "narrowness" as you go up the stairs. It's only about 3/4" of an inch difference, but if you don't figure out which way it narrows, and which side has more of the "cut" than the other, you end up with gaps at the edge of the carpet on the bottom, wider stairs.
Anyway, that was my day today pretty much.
Almost makes you dizzy when you walk around the corner and look down the hall 
Hey, did you get all your cabling done? I'm about ready to tackle mine. Just finished the exhaust plenums for the computer iso box. What a friggin chore. Could have built a whole studio in the time it took to build this dam box. Oh well, I think its worth it though. I HATE computer fan noise 
I wasn't proud of it either. Oh well, can't be a master craftsman all the time.