Delayed Gratification

    
    

Aahhh! Completion! Sooooo Good!

Studio Landing

    

I found a really great rug in the Fashion District in downtown LA. It was a bit out of my price range, but after a little negotiation, I walked with it and it's a perfect addition. Here we see the rug laid and centered with the first of the studio furniture and gear falling into place.

The Negligent Blogger!

  

I admit it! Je suis culpable! I simply have not kept this here blog up to date in any fashion...But, dammit, I'm a busy man. I gave my camera to my father and just failed to focus on documenting the remaining building processes. I've been in and out of town and when in town long enough to get into a rhythm in the space, I just didn't have it in me to stand back and shoot shyte photos from my phone.

So what we see in the photos here are three shots of the first of two similarly designed and constructed bi-level storage areas. These are poor quality shots taken with my Nokia E61i camera phone - and some of the only shots taken until what is now pretty much an finished and operable studio. We have steel studs spanning the entire 12' floor to ceiling height with a loft storage level built at 7'. This framing has since been sheathed with OSB and painted, along with the second gear storage and CPU/studio machine room.

The Bike is DONE!!!

    

Cool! Finished the bike and had my first ride this last Monday...and have since been riding every chance I get. What gratification. What liberation. I love this little bike!

Slowly, but Scheherazade

    
    

Well, it won't be quite one thousand and one adventurous nights, but I'm learning from her nonetheless. I picked up the wheels a week ago and really felt that tectonic shift from a thousand pieces of metal to a realistic view of an overhauled vintage motorcycle. I had the wheels and hubs that I shined up threaded and trued and the tubes and tires popped on and balanced at the premier spot in Azusa, CA, called Buchanan Wheel and Spoke. Amazing place - all they do is make wheels and spokes - I was taken on a tour tour by one of the elders and witnessed spokes being made on cylindrical presses from the turn of the Century...yes the other Century! Very cool insight. Wheel truing is an art form. Mine are now shiny and beautiful...and on my bike! The photos show the wheels flanking the frame, and then on the bike. The engine block is up on the bench. I've sent the the barrels, heads and reed cages, along with new .25 first over-bore pistons and rings, off to a two stroke specialist in Tennessee. This guy is passionate about these bikes. He is going to do a glass bead pressure cleaning of the parts and then carefully bore and fine tune these parts. The compression will be considerably higher and therefore the bike will offer much higher performance. These other shot is of a pair of old Yamaha shocks that I disassembled and cleaned up. They are now on the bike and looking sharp.

Like you need another project, Brett...

    

Those are the words, verbatim, voiced by many of my friends upon learning that I'd bought a '70's street bike and had decided to completely rebuild it. It's true, with my loft only half done and a number of musical endeavours crossing my path it's seems a bit overwhelming to take on such a project, but truth be told, I'm loving every obsessive minute of it! And the unfinished half of my space is the best bike repair shop in the world!

Seemingly from out of nowhere, I've become fascinated with 70's Japanese street bikes. I first had a Honda CB750 Four in mind (which I'd still like to have at some point), but then after meeting people who had different smaller bikes was introduced to the Yamaha RD series. After looking up all things RD on Craigslist, a day later I found this RD200 2-stroke bike that ran, but needed some love. It was an impulse buy and after having some major issues during my first ride on it, I thought I'd really made a mistake. But with some encouragement from local bike shop personnel, I had it towed to the loft. One thing led to another and by the end of the week it was in pieces!

The shots above are of the bike the day I bought it and about three weeks later completely disassembled, with the frame and peripheral parts de-greased and repainted, wheels unthreaded waiting for new chrome spokes, and all chrome and cast aluminum parts rigorously cleaned and polished. Whew! that's a run-on sentence...and that's kind of what the process has resembled to this point; one continuous line of research, reading and hard work.

Vanity Shots!

    
    

Mornin'! So, getting back into the swing of things here after returning from Japan. While I don't have any new updates, I have a few shots that I took while documenting the stairs that were just for self-gratification - to kinda get an overview of how the place is developing. I thought this would be a practical way to bridge the next official entry...Official, whatever! Along with these I've included a close-up of the lamp that I built to illuminate the kitchen bar/dinning table - I absolutely love this thing - and a second work in progress that will be a ceiling assembly comprised of a trio of industrial fixtures that will illuminate the studio area...Um, I guess that makes this an official entry.

And he's building....the Stairway...

    

Ahhh! The joy of calculating and cutting stair stringers...Here we have shots of the finished corridor, the cut stringers and the 1"x8" planks that would become the runs, or steps, and finally the job (almost) done. There are a few finishing touches that I was not able to finish before leaving - as I write this I'm 39,000 feet in the air en route to Tokyo for 10 days of shows in Japan. I still need to put a clear coat and run a string of rope lights throught the middle of the two stringers. I had a vision of underlit stairs from the moment I visualized the stairs to the boudoir. My inspiration was very linear steel framed stairs with wood planks. With custom steel stringers out of my budget, I was commited to creating the same aesthetic with wood - the end result is basically two 2"x10"x10' planks separated with a 2"x4"x10' and bolted together. The runs were made with the three planks of 2"x8"x10' you see in the rough photo.

Lofty

    

    

The loft is in! The pictures above were taken this past Sunday. Shortly thereafter, various comforts were put in their rightful place. I've even started to pull some books out of storage and begin filling the glass bookshelves that I designed in the loft 'nook' - truly the first real move toward comfort since signing the lease on this bloody space last July. Gratifying to say the least.

With each new completed task I become more fulfilled as my designs take shape. I'm really happy with the outcome of the translucent paneled walls framed with steel studs and internally lit with rope light snaking through the bottom track. I ended up using three types of material for the translucent walls: I began the design with corrugated fiberglas for both inside and outside, but quickly decided to seek an alternative for the inside that was flat - mainly for a flush surface on which to mount shelving. I started this with standard acrylic florescent light panels - very difficult to work with - and finished with what are actually polyurethane plastic floor mats (i.e. typically found under a wheeled chair at a computer desk). I doubt that I would have considered this material, had it not been for a visit to the Ikea damaged/seconds area and literally stepped on a stack of them. Got eleven of 'em for $3 a sheet and thought they would at least make good work mats. Alas, they served a much higher purpose, being relatively easy to cut and offering a really desirable diffused light. Like in the kitchen, I've balanced the translucence and steel with the warmth of sanded fir panels on the back wall and shelving nook.

The Showroom...

    

    

I'm back...finally...As I mentioned in my last post, it's really getting harder to pull away to make posts and after giving my ol Nikon point and shoot to my pops for Christmas, I've been shooting less. I'm in the market for a digital SLR and haven't decided on one yet. For the record, the photos in this post are from mid January. After having some work out of town since then, I've been making insane progress on the loft and storage area above the kitchen and bathroom, respectively (the areas are best viewed in the top two shots on this post). I intend to show the progress in a new post by early next week - that's a promise.

I recently befriended and old Hungarian wholesaler who, after conducting business out of this building for more than 28 years, is finally calling it quits. A. Lebovitz is his name, coolest cat; wears a three piece tweed suit and hat daily - his trusty pipe hanging from his mouth. He needed some help moving a few things when I learned he was leaving and offered me to browse his decades worth of accumulation. Wow, what a pack rat's dream - boxes, carts and bolts of fabric - unopened mail postmarked from '72. Crazy! I found a few useful item: wheeled carts i'll use for side tables, misc. light fixtures. But the coolest thing was an old cast iron knitting machine that Lebovitz allowed me to grab. I'll be using the iron stand/legs as the base for a bar height dining table that out of the kitchen area. Cool beans!

Outer Shell

    

So...I have the basic shell of the kitchen and bath to show in this post. Honestly, I've had such a productive past week that I'd like to post the progress to date. However, in keeping with even a remote concept of a step by step blog, I'm posting these shots from a week and a half ago. I've found in this stage in the project, it's getting harder to pull myself away to take photos when I'm in a hyper-productive flow, particularly when finally having the opportunity to realize my vision for the bath and kitchen.

In the kitchen, I've decided to go with sanded Douglas Fir panels. I saw this used for the walls in a cafe and really thought it would bring a bit more warmth in combination with the galvanized steel back wall. In the bath, rather than using corrugated steel panels, I have instead used a solid color floor and deck stain in a cobalt blue color. I've covered the stained OSB with translucent fiberglas panels (which you'll see in the next post) and am very, very happy with how it's turned out.