Work Space

Man, it’s been a very long time since I’ve had a solid work space at home. I’ve had several spots over the course of the last few years, but nothing that didn’t require moving this or that around in order to make things in that one space.

My old spot, since before we had kids, was in our basement. My dad and I started framing out the basement back in 1997, a year after we moved into our house. It was a slow process as we both worked full time and we would spend Saturdays and Sundays doing a little work at a time. Plus, while my dad is pretty handy and even framed out and built two rooms in my parents basement(one of which was my guitar practice space) he’s not a construction or remodeling guy by trade. He’s learned stuff piecemeal over decades.

My grandpa, his dad, was the same way. My grandpa added a spare room and bathroom to his and my grandma’s 2-story home by himself over time. And with his help my dad put a treehouse between two trees in our backyard for me when I was 7. My grandpa was sort of a jack of all trades. He never much liked working for someone else, preferring to be his own boss. That made for some tight financial times when my dad was a kid, but that didn’t mean my grandpa was lazy. On the contrary, he worked himself into a back surgery in the late 50s. He started a building trades company when my dad was a kid. Sort of like what would end up being places like Lowe’s, Menards, and Home Depot, except it was just him. He’d drive down to the trainyards and unload an entire flatbed trailer by himself, pulling off 100 lb bags of concrete and 2x4s and loading them in the back of a flatbed pickup.

So hard work isn’t a foreign concept to us, it’s just the know how on doing it smart and not right into a lifetime of back problems.

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By 2000 my dad and I had a room framed out, drywalled, and carpeted. I bought acoustic foam and covered half the walls for soundproofing as we had just had our first child. For 7 years that space was the only one completely finished, but by late 2007 the rest of the basement was finished and became a second family room space.

I spent several years in that music/practice space, both writing and recording by myself as well as with a drummer named Jack and with a couple other friends. But mainly this was my space to go write and record music. Eventually though, as the kids got older and needed more space to hang out and have friends over that space was converted into more of a lounge/practice space. My recording/practice needs lessened as well as I was writing/blogging more and writing/recording music less. Or if I was writing/recording it was with a little analog synth and a digital keyboard. I was moving away from guitar/bass/drums, not because I lost interest in that music but because it was easier to record to headphones and I was really getting into soundtrack music.

Over the last three years I had little spots in both our bedroom and in one of the spare rooms we had upstairs. I used a little desk my wife brought home from work and used an old 4-track cassette recorder. It was fun, but I was sort of missing that bigger space quality. If I wanted to record live drums I couldn’t just throw some mics up. It was an ordeal due to furniture shoved in the music room. Even when I had the desire to record it was almost too much work to do it.

Well now with kids moving out it was our chance to really go to town with getting rid of stuff we no longer used or needed. Old furniture headed to the dumpster we rented and the music space was once again re-opened as a creative space. Not just for music, but I’ve got a great desk spot for writing reviews, or posts like this. It’s also a great spot for mixing and mastering my music. My wife is also set up upstairs with a creative space for her quilting, sewing, and also a spot where she can work when she works from home.

I’ve got some guitars set up and a great area with amps and my guitar pedals. I bought an adapter for my Boss RC-20XL Loop Station. I’ve used batteries in it since I first bought it, but felt I wanted it hardwired as I plan on doing some guitar looping/improvisation.

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There’s also enough room in there I can set up an easel and paint. And of course I’ve got a stereo set up with turntable and CD player. That’s a must.

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Things seem to be coming together. I can feel that itch for making things and now I’ve got a spot back to do that. Plus, it’s just a really nice, quiet room where I can escape for an hour or so. I’ve never meditated before, but hell I might start up now. It’s just nice to have a place to go where I can write, play, paint, or just sit quietly and listen to some ambient music. Maybe even lock into those chakras I’ve heard so much about. See if I can find some of the inner peace everyone raves about.

We’ve still got a lot of work to do in the next week and a half, mainly filling a dumpster full of stuff that needs to go. Plus moving our daughter back in. We’ve got till 8/31 before she needs to be completely out, so we’ve got some work ahead of us. But hey, we’ll do it. I’ve got a spot where I can go meditate on it.