maltomario

Not sure I was ever considered part of 'the old gang' but I just logged in this morning after a long hiatus. Hello everyone!

I almost bought an evh frankenstein for 7k. its a beautiful yet ugly guitar at same time. cool in person. even with that discount (down from 25k) i couldn't talk myself into it. almost bought a Gibson black widow les Paul. badass looking instrument. when i went back a week later it was gone .

that is freakin' amazing, Mario. you have skills, both on and off the guitar. thank you for sharing all of this! Thanks Ben! I've been keeping a photo journal over the years.. kinda nice to look back and see the transformation. I'm almost in the home stretch (just cabinets/countertop, tile floor in bar area, drop ceiling, carpet/trim and then I'm ready to tackle the bathroom.. ok on second thought I guess I still have quite a bit left to do..

Are you doing all of this by yourself in your spare time? I think it looks great. I especially like the Flintstones bar. Thanks Doc.. Figured you'd dig the stone, being a caveman and all.. =) yep. all work done myself.. which is good and bad - good because I'm saving lots of money and know exactly what is being done every step of the way, bad because I don't have much free time to begin with and its a 4yr+ project at this point.. and its still damn expensive for supplies. .but this past 18months I made considerable progress.. hope to wrap it up by end of this year! I'm going to have pro's measure/install the granite countertop. I don't want to make a $3000 mistake by mis-measuring a dimension.. thats the only part that makes me nervous about this project.

some updates on my man cave progress.. finished sanding, primed and painted walls. grouted stonework. installed man cave required tv (home theatre speakers/components waiting until basement is 100% done)..

rear corner - this was a BITCH to do.. lots of cuts. and the $2 cutting wheels only last for 3 cuts.. lots of dust too. did the cuts outside the edge of stone floats over drywall.. kinda like the effect prime coat for walls ran out of paint.. didn't quite finish priming yet..

Start laying out pattern of my stone veneer buttering the back (no, not what you were thinking, perv!) first course almost done with first face done with front wall. the drywall spacers on the bottom were used to give me 1/2" gap so I could have tile tucked in there when I do the tile floor. would be a PITA to try to trim to contours of stone otherwise. starting work on other wall view from guitar room small corner side wall done

its been a few weeks, thought i'd share a few updates since then.. mudding the drywall: sanding time! more to follow...

I did all that (as the instructions also explain clearly). The problem is that once i adjust the set screw to get the "e"perfect, it grips the stud and i can't pull it back to "d" unless i loosen the set screw a bit. That throws the "e" out sgain for the next time Oh ok.. Then try this. Take the dtuna off.. Remove the saddle bolt, and inspect it for gouges. What i normally do for periodic maintenance is stick the bolt in a drill chuck and use steel wool or 1200 grit sandpaper if its really chewed up.. to smooth it out, then apply light oil and reassemble check to see if plating is too thick to allow the bolt to fully seat in through u-shaped channel in the dtuna. . If so you will need to file it down.

First off, make sure you are setting it right before writing it off as crap. Here's what u need to do. With the dtuna pulled away from bridge (out).. Tune low e string to d before locking the lock nut. Then check to make sure all strings are in tune d a d g b e. If they aren't, adjust now. Then push the dtuna in. Now is when u adjust setscrew on dtuna. Adjust until pitch is e. Voila. I have seen some plating issues where the chrome is too thick causing problems but i doubt that is the case here.

Thanks guys. And sorry i left to seat down for the photos. Lol. Next time Mrs maltomario yells at me for leaving the seat up i will just point her to this thread so she can see the error of her ways!

Wow looking very good! That basement layout looks very familiar, do you live in the midwest? Illinois or Wisconsin? Nope, northeast

That is one hell of a nice Man cave! You do very nice work. thanks, but i make a lot of mistakes.. which photos don't always show. my mudding isn't perfect (god damn that is an art form in itself), there's a few spots where I didn't quite build it up / smooth it out good enough. but then again it didn't cost me $ to hire a pro.. so its a tradeoff.

Looking good! I'm scheduled to graduate college next May (if all goes well, it's going to be a hell of a semester). I know it won't happen for a long while after that, but one of the things I'm really looking forward to is getting a house and building my own man cave. congrats on your upcoming graduation.. and yeah owning a house is great.. i've done a lot of home improvement projects on mine already, but this one takes the cake. its nice to be able to make it your "own" ya know? i've learned alot (self-taught) about construction/electrical/plumbing/drywall/finishing/masonry since buying a house in 05. it also is a great way to save money since your labor is always "free". lol. good luck man and hang in there those last few months of the semester.

This {censored} is amazing! I love that shelf... thanks man! this shelf built-in took me a long time, lots of work.. its drywalled on every side, so there was a lot of taping too. major PITA but the end result was worth it. I'm very proud of it. its got a capacitive touch switch so you can vary the amount of light. and I designed it to fit my collection of engineering textbooks almost perfectly. (almost because i forgot to account for the thickness of the drywall. so its about 1" too short (width-wise) on each shelf but not that big of a blunder I suppose. here's a pic to give you an idea of how much taping is involved for such a small area..

by the way, here's some earliest photo I can find of the basement. Unfortunately I don't think I took any pics of it before I started ripping in to it. here's a glimpse of the other side, which is almost done.. just needs carpet and trim (which will wait until the other half is done) hope you guys enjoy my little photo journal.. I have tons more pics showing most every step but won't bore you guys to death.. lol

Hey Ben! sounds like a plan.. you better have beer though and a guitar for me to play!

area behind bar wall view towards bathroom. the tv will be mounted on the far wall in prep for the home theatre, here's some outlets, cable line, ethernet port. the bundle on bottom is the 5.1 speaker wires. I have them on the other side, waiting until i have a tv mount and figure where I want to put it before I poke the speaker wires throught he drywall. the wires also run inside the wall for suround speakers at the rear ordered 4 custom windows, they took forever to get here and were a pain in the ass to install. here's my proposed kitchen layout.. the cabinets and granite aren't cheap, so i'm kinda holding off on that for now.. next step is drywall taping and mudding.. then sanding and then primer / paint. then going to try my hand at the stone veneer for the bar wall. i'm leaving the bathroom for last. thats all for now kids!

storage area behind kitchen.. i keep my boxes, guitar cases etc here took some time to rewire some things since I'm anal. the blue wire is cat6 which I fished up to my living room so i can have a network drop there for future upgrades. the two white wires are stereo audio from my 7.1 receiver.. these will be going to the back deck (outdoor). right now they're not poking out of the house, but it is a planned upgrade when i build a new deck later next year. my network / cable center. ran all new RG6, fed by a RG11 from a grounding block. my cable modem and router sit on the shelf, along with network patch panel. the black wires are cable lines which go throughout the house. had a lot of fun crimping my own connections.. here's the RG11 / grounding block in my garage. glorious back to the main project drywall!! the purple stuff is moisture resistant by the way. if you look closely on each side just about 1' down from the joists, you can make out the two rear speaker wires poking through the drywall. I'm goin to do a drop ceiling in this half because there is a kitchen above which will be remodeled in the future and I want access to the plumbing / electrical for that when the time comes continued...

diamond mesh, secured with galvanized nails. this stuff is sharp so you gotta be careful scratch coat of mortar. this is my first ever masonry project so i'm a little apprehensive. now just let it dry for 48hrs now its dry, I can continue insulation (did I mention I hate insulation?) the silver tape is because I was being a little thrifty by trying to get some of my scraps to fit in the cavity.. I had long slices that weren't quite wide enough, so i just used 2pcs and taped the seam. Insulation done. halle-freaking-lujah moved my fridge in (temporarily) to get my drinks cold! continued...

before insulating the kitchen area, I constructed what will be the front bar wall.,. did this before insulating so i don't accidentally rip holes in the insulation while banging hammers shot of the bar, standing in the kitchen area. made a 'u' shaped half wall, securing to floor with construction adhesive and special nails. used a cripple stud to keep the wall in right 90degree angle while glue set next comes sheathing inside corner. a fridge will be here, hence the outlet. the short pieces of 2x4 in corner are there to give me somthing to screw to when drywalling it later next is the moisture barrier continued...

electrical wiring done view looking towards bathroom from wetbar. my little boy is helping me clean up one of the 4 original 1960's hopper basement windows many of them were not framed, so in prep for drywall, I framed them properly ripped up floor tile in the kitchen area.. this will be ceramic tile eventually built-in bookcase by the bathroom starting insulation i really hate doin insulation. note the $14 epiphone bar stool (i have 4 of them). thanks MF! continued...

wetbar area, "before" pic pile o' debris (one of many) now we're getting somewhere preparing to run electrical - wall sconces, ceiling cans, outlets, gfci by future sink wetbar area after bein gutted to studs. the brick veneer {censored} was really a pain in the ass to get rid of. let there be light-uh! continued...

Its been a while since my last man cave post. here's a few pics of the other half that i'm working on in my (limited) spare time. while the other half has my guitars, pool table and recording gear, this side will have a wet bar/kitchenette, small lounge area w/ home theatre setup, library and a full bath. bathroom (after ripping out the metal shower stall) shower stall area, showing subfloor ripping up subfloor.. going to go down to concrete, and do tile for floor to gain max ceiling height new door (by the way, these are a pain in the ass to install with only 1 person.. ugh old flange was too tall, and rusting apart. so i cut drain lower. will cut again once i determine final floor thickness. this pic shows a replacement flange that will be used, shown here only temporary. next post will be wetbar area

neil schon LP trussart the moog guitar firebird x (hey.. I'm curious, don't think i'd buy one) '59 LP original (to see how it compares to other nice LP's I've played)