My first sketch for the new studio room featured a large wall cabinet style design with two
side-by-side TVs in it.
But after getting feedback from others and adding up the lumber cost at today’s prices,
I decided to simplify the design.
This led to more of a credenza style lower with floating shelves and a center mounted
TV.
I am using an Ikea sit-stand desk that I already own so the set can be used in different orientations.
This set will also become the set for the GeekBits Podcast (link in description).
OK.
Well this is going to be the studio room and there's a lot of work that we need to do in
here before we actually build the set.
So the first thing that I did was I replaced the lights and they're new.
They're up there were only two fixtures in here before.
And now there are four and there 5000 lumen but they're called smooth LED so they don't
you don't actually see the LEDs.
Everything gets diffused and that makes this room feel really nice and bright.
But the problem is the walls in here are sort of this yellowy beigey brown.
I'm not exactly sure how this shows up on camera but it looks… well what it does is
it casts a very kind of a yellowish glow onto everything and I don't like that.
And what I'm going to do is re paint the room a kind of a light-gray color and then I will
also have to replace this rubbery brown trim molding.
I'll probably just use some like 1x4 MDF or something like that, and paint it white.
But before I do all of that I have to start by prepping the room and there are all kinds
of holes where like pictures and things were hung by the previous owners.
And so I'm going to go around the room and I'm going to patch all of the holes.
I'm going to take all the plates off the wal.l I'm going to remove this baseboard and then
we're going to start painting!
First, I worked on filling all the holes.
I like to take the butt of my 5 in 1 tool and indent holes before filling them with
spackling.
Sometimes you have to fill the hole more than once if the spackling leaves a divot after
drying.
Next up I went to work on removing the old rubber base molding.
This stuff is generally glued to the wall and pulling it off will likely pull the paper
off the drywall.
I found that using my 5 in 1 tool or pulling the molding towards the floor would keep it
from pulling the paper from above the molding.
As long as I kept the damage below, it wouldn’t really matter.
Then I went to work removing all of the covers from the switches and outlets around the room…
and then put some tape around them, and anything else I wanted to keep free from paint got
a nice strip of blue masking tape.
Lastly, anywhere I patched the wall I sprayed with Killz primer to keep it from flashing
the paint after it dries.
And with that, the room is ready for paint!
I applied all of the paint with a roller, since I didn’t want to have to mask off
the floor and ceiling, or worry about the air conditioner ingesting over spray.
It’s a little slower, but I feel like the results are just as good with some patience.
For those wondering, I went with a color called “Light French Gray” from Sherwin Williams.
With the room painted, it was time to start building the credenza.
Luckily, David was in the shop today and able to help me cut down the larger pieces on the
table saw.
I then went to work measuring all of the different components, marking them to length, and then
cutting them down to size on the miter saw.
As always, I like to label each board with its location name and orientation marks to
make the assembly process easier.
Some of the boards needed additional cuts.
This toe kick for example needed to be removed from the end pieces.
I used the jigsaw for the operations.
Years ago, Rockler sent me these jigs for squaring the corners of things while holding
them together while the glue dries.
These a dream when working alone.
Once I got everything clamped up, I just added some brad nails to all of the corners and
then used a wet paper towel to wipe away any glue squeeze out.
I then added some glue to where the toe kick cover will attach, put it in place, and then
secured it with some brad nails.
No banging your toes on this credenza!
I want to give another pro tip.
I think these are always so important 'cause they don't always… they're not always just
obvious.
And so I need to assemble this and I'm here again by myself and I don't have any help.
And so you know I need to get this shelf for example in the center.
And I know the dimensions!
I could measure and I can draw a line right, but it's never going to be perfectly lined
up.
Something is always going to go wrong.
Especially when I'm trying to hold everything together all by myself.
You know probably won't get exactly lined up and it won't be perfect.
But there's a better way and you know you just kind of learn these things… you know
when you have to work by yourself… and so here's what I'm going to do.
The first thing I'm going to do is get this side shelf in and this is going to be kind
of a big open cubby and it will have a door on it.
Right?
These will all be the boxes and so the first thing that I need to do is get this shelf
in place.
So the way to do that is to use this this is the dimension.
Right?
So if I pull this down, but this up against it, I can glue and nail it at the bottom.
Then I could move this to the top, line it up, glue it, and nail it.
Right?
Then this will be a fixed.
Then I can move this.
These are the side shelves (or sorry the center shelves).
And so you know they're going to go like right here and right here.
But for now I'll just put them up against the ends like this.
And then the shelf can rest upon them now.
It's perfectly aligned.
I don't have to do any work.
It's all super simple.
I'll just glue it and nail it at each end.
Once I'm done with that, then I can move these guys out to their proper locations and glue
and nail those in.
So that's how we'll do this without having to go through a lot of extra work and without
having a helper.
So with my plan in place I went to work gluing and brad nailing all of the shelves and supports
into place.
The brad nails aren’t really there to add structural support.
They’re only real purpose is to hold things in place while the glue dries… so I can
keep working.
If you don’t have a brad nailer, don’t let that stop you from making things.
Just wait for the glue to dry before moving on to the next step of your project.
I wanted to the front of the credenza to have a nice, finished look.
To accomplish this, I built a face frame out of 1 by 2s, and then glued and brad nailed
them in place.
Now, it’s time for some paint!
I went with a deep black paint called “Tricorn Black” from Sherwin Williams.
I thought this would give some nice contrast from the light grey wall.
I want all the color of my set coming from the items on display not the furniture or
walls.
I decided again to just roll this paint on with a foam roller.
I did fill all the nail holes and cracks off camera, because….
I forgot to film that part.
After rolling the flat surfaces, I came back with a small brush and did all the cut in
work.
And with the paint dry it’s time to start installing it the new studio room!
I built the credenza in two separate pieces to make moving and installing it simpler.
So once in the room, I needed to join them together permanently.
With the credenza in place, I went to work on the new baseboards.
I decided to put a couple of coats of paint on them before installing them.
That will mean I only have to paint the nail holes and joints after installing them.
And that means less time on my old man knees!
I then took some measurements, made some cuts, and started installing them!
Well it never fails when you're doing a project like this that your drywall isn't straight.
It's always wavy and curvy.
And because of that there is a gap across the very top of the bottom part of the set
display.
And in some places it's tiny is like a 32nd of an inch, but in some places it's almost
1/4 of an inch.
Again that's because the sheetrock or the drywall is doing like that as it goes along.
Well they make this really cool stuff called, I think it's called scribe molding, that's
what I've always called it.
But it is it's made out of polystyrene.
So it's really flexible.
You can bend this stuff in any way you want and it won't break or crack.
So what you do with this is you use this as a molding around the back of cabinetry, or
in this case a set the bottom portion of our set and you just lay it down push it up against
the drywall and it will follow the shape of the drywall.
But it will hide all of the gaps and cracks along the top.
Then you just nail it down with a Brad nailer, caulk it, and paint it.
And it looks beautiful!
So that's what we're gonna do!
Moving on, its time to install the TV.
I decided to go with a 50” and center it on the credenza.
Of we’re mounting this on the wall to make it look nice and clean.
If you install the mount temporarily, you can use it to get your measurements for drilling
your holes in the wall.
Since I have aluminum studs on this wall, I used toggle bolt anchors to securely grab
the studs from inside the wall.
I wanted all the wires inside the wall, so I used my multi-tool to cut out a hole for
a box that will contain power and HDMI cables.
The box just tilts into the wall and then screws clamp it in pace.
I lifted the TV into place and hung it on the mount.
It’s amazing how little these modern TVs weigh.
When I was growing up moving a TV was a two man job!
And there it is!
I think it looks great!
But we need some shelves on each side of it.
So I went to work in the shop building some floating shelves.
I picked floating shelves because they look really modern and there would be no sides
to block my prop items regardless of camera angles.
Floating shelves work by attaching these metal pegs to the wall, so I need to make sure to
leave some space for them and allow me to still adjust the shelf side to side.
The spacers will do just that and give me an attachment point for the bottom cover.
You can see how the pin slides into these holes.
To make sure I get these shelves perfectly aligned I used a laser level to mark my lines.
I could then come back using my regular level as a straight edge and draw some pencil marks.
Where I could, I ran screws into the aluminum studs.
Everywhere else I used the screw in drywall anchors.
I’d have preferred toggle bolts, but I couldn’t find any that would fit these brackets in
time.
The shelves just literally slide right over the pegs and are held in place via friction.
And man does that ever look cool!
But we’re not done yet!
We’re going to trick the whole set out with some WS2813 LED lighting.
This is The Geek Pub after all!
At the front of each floating shelf, and each box in the credenza I installed a strip of
RGB LEDs.
I used black heat shrink tubing to help it blend in and hide the wires, hot gluing them
to the shelf.
I chose this method so I could easily replace them in the future should I decide.
The wires are fed down the wall using a pull string I installed off camera.
This makes for a super clean look.
Stick around to the end of the video because the results are simply amazing.
The last major thing we needed to do was to install some acoustic foam to eliminate echoes
in the room.
David stopped by and helped me hang some sheets of eighth inch plywood on the wall.
The plywood is will allow me to glue the acoustic foam to the wall, but be able to move or completely
remove it later with out leaving adhesive all over the walls.
I drew a 12 inch by 12 inch grid on the wall and got started gluing each foam tile to the
plywood.
I used 3M super 77 spray foam to hold them in place and it worked fantastic.
I also painted the edge of the plywood that would be visible just for aesthetic purposes.
And now… its time for the reveal!
Well… welcome to the new Geek Pub set!
I'm so glad you're here!
So this set will probably change and morph over time.
I'll probably change the decor from time to time.
Basically, I just took everything that I had laying around and threw it on the shelves
and stuff behind me just to see what it would look like!
And uh, something you're probably wondering about.
The RGB lighting!
That's mostly just for fun I doubt I'll use it in many videos.
I might actually you know like at Christmas time or or you know some holiday.
I might like let's say Halloween I might make the lights orange for Halloween!
You know.
Who knows?
It's there if I ever need it!
It's the geek pub my gosh I have to do geeky things!!
And so that is the RGB.
In addition to that this will ultimately be the set for the geek bits podcast that we're
doing and I'm going to move this table over so that it captures the whole room.
I will scoot the camera back and then we'll have it set up for three to four people to
be able to be on the set at any one time.
So I designed this set to have a little bit of fluidity and the way that it's laid out.
Well that about wraps it up for this video.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
Anything you think I ought to do different?
Change or add?
Just let me know what you think!
I really appreciate it and I'll see you in the next video!!