Yesterday I had a date with our basement. Our apartment walls are paper thin, and with the impending baby arrival I wanted to make a space in the basement that I would feel comfortable playing music in. The mini-reno took me to Home Depot, to buy 80 boards of cedar and a miter saw to clad up this weird little glassed in room. Cedar was ideal because it holds up against the moist basement, looks good, and it smells fantastic.

Here’s a view of the room under the stairs, I think I might frost the glass so I don’t have to look at the mess in the rest of the basement.

Time to get to work, the hardest part was deciding whether to install the slats vertical or horizontal. I ended up going horizontal to stay away from the traditional wood paneling look.

Here’s my new little Ryobi miter saw, only $99 and works perfectly for these little jobs. The only limitation is you can’t cut very wide boards.

I thought I would tackle the most difficult wall first, and it came out pretty nice.

For the next wall I just butted up the ends of the boards against each other, nothing fancy.

The angle under the stairs will be a nice little keyboard nook.

Here it is with all of the walls finished. I still need to decide on flooring, install the baseboards, and decide whether or not to conquer the ceiling.

Can’t wait to get it all cleaned up and move all my old gear in!