if I wood, wood you?

 Two major developments in the evolution of Upper Deck Studios (I think that's gonna be the official name; bonus if you get the really disgusting joke in there)...

Kinda hard to make out in this pic, but Handyman Keith and I installed the secondary front window Sunday. This is conceptually similar to the side windows, but instead of using a solid piece of glass, I ordered a modern version of the existing window (large immobile pane in the middle, smaller openable panes on either side) without any "nail fins" (that's a metal tab that sticks out so you can screw it into studs). This way I'd still have openable windows, you just have to open two separate windows. We dropped the new window onto the sill behind the existing window (in front of, I guess you'd call it... inside!) and screwed it in. This is tricky business because the somewhat-flexible frame needs to be really straight and true, otherwise the sliding windows won't open/close and seal correctly. This is the part Keith is really good at (and I'm not). Also, instead of cheesy single-pane glass like the originals, this one is double-pane low-E awesomeness with gas layer in the middle, so it'll block heat effectively. I carefully caulked and sealed all the quarter-round trim as well. With three panes of well-sealed glass, the noise transmission level is tremendously reduced. Hopefully this will prevent much sound from getting out and allow me to be semi-loud at all hours. Oh yeah, and getting the 4x8 ft window upstairs was far less traumatic than I expected. The two sliding side windows easily come out which made the weight go from oh-shit heavy to something manageable, and unlike carting drywall up there where whacking the corners is death, it wasn't such a big deal here.

Far more obviously...  there's like, a great big laminate wood floor. I'm not done, but I'm about 2/3 across the main area. As I expected, doing a big rectangle is a lot easier than doing a small room with an angled wall. This is a "floating" floor, i.e. it's not affixed to the subfloor. I know that sounds like a recipe for disaster, but in reality, it all locks together and is so heavy that it can't move. Once I learned the voodoo involved in making it lock together correctly, it was pretty easy. By far by the biggest pain (literally and figuratively) is that I have to run downstairs to the garage and grab forty-odd pound boxes of flooring every ten minutes.

Rewinding for minute, John came over Saturday and helped me finish the flooring the vocal booth... this was super tricky because of the angled wall and doorway, requiring some fancy angle cutting/notching/measuring. I only screwed up a little, but not in any really noticeable way, just some wasted flooring material. The not-so-fun part is that I get to do the angled wall/doorway notching cutting madness all over again for the other side of the doorway in the big room. There's also a little walk-in closet that I haven't posted pics of; I haven't decided whether I'm gonna do wood in there or not. I might just puss out and do cheapo 12x12 vinyl tile.