Here's the building:
The house was built in 1897 by a cigar-maker who immigrated from Germany. He added this outbuilding to roll his cigars. We used it as a teenage hangout and garage-band rehearsal space in the seventies and eighties. We gutted it in 2018 (the plaster walls were beyond repair) and put in shelves for the Museum.
Here are some photos of the inside:
I've got a killer video overview of the Museum here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf1L6amy56Q&t=148s
Here's a photo of my work area:
We're on the first floor of a triple decker; I'm used to it, having been born in this house, but the rooms are much smaller than what you'd find in post-WWII houses in the suburbs. This central room was originally the dining room, but I needed space for my studio when we moved from the second and third floors down to the first floor (long story). My workbench is on the right, and the paint rack sits on the floor underneath the keyboard. The clock on the left is an original vinyl copy of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's "Life With The Lions" on Zapple records. I bought it with my allowance when it came out in 1969, and I wanted my money back! At least it's serving a good purpose now. There's a David Bowie "Diamond Dogs" resin model on the right monitor, a Bride Of Frankenstein model in the stained glass window, and on the bench are a finished Konga styrene kit as well as an in-progress Mummy's Tomb styrene kit.
I record music in this spot and do my models here as well. We still use it as a dining room, though. As you can imagine, with a space this small, I only work on one kit at a time. As you can also see, I'm big on surround-sound and mix music to 5.1 speakers.
We have three "cinemas" to watch movies in! Cinema One, which is outside, is the most impressive. Alas, we can only use it maybe eight to twelve times a year during the warm weather on dry evenings. We can seat about fifty, though we usually only have twenty five or so. Here's a picture of the area during the day (Porchfest 2021, to be precise). It's on that second empty lot that I mentioned earlier:
The screen is 16' X 9' and can be seen behind the band and the gazebos. It's the size of a 220' TV! The audio is delivered through five nice sounding PA speakers and a 10" subwoofer, powered by a 175 watt-per-channel audiophile amp. Fun nights!
Cinema Two in the living room is an audiophile's dream, but it only fits four people comfortably:
Like all three cinemas, it's fed by an Oppo 105D universal disc player - the best disc player ever designed and manufactured (they don't make them anymore). The preamp, amp and speakers were all manufactured by Emotiva out of Tennesee. They used to make affordable audiophile equipment, but they gave up on that in the past decade and now just have expensive stuff. The TV is a 65-inch "Frame" TV from Samsung which for some strange reason was priced the same as a regular 65-inch TV for a few days at Best Buy. It has a matte finish, so you don't see reflections of yourself when watching a movie. Any music or video I produce has to sound and look good on this system, or it's back to the drawing board. I call it "the acid test".
Cinema Three is the bedroom. It only fits me and my wife. Sorry! But look at the Aurora boxes I have on display! (Did I tell you I married the most tolerant woman on earth?)
Here's my movie collection. I'd estimate it's over 2000 films, since the cabinet holds 3000 total. I don't save the blu ray cases; I just put the discs in sleeves. If I wanted to store these in their cases on shelves, I'd need another room or two.
I collect physical media because it's the only way you can guarantee quality and accessibility. Streaming looks like crap on a good system, and I'm not going to pay hundreds of dollars a year for crap that could disappear at any time.
If you'd like to see more of my models, there's always the online Lowbudget Model Museum. It has multiple photos of just about every model I ever built, including those that I've sold or otherwise dumped over the years:
http://www.lowbudgetrecords.com/Model%2 ... useum.html
Any questions, feel free to ask. I hardly ever lie...
- Tim
P.S. All of this is through dumb luck, not tons of wealth. My parents bought the house in the fifties. I could never afford a house around here nowadays - I'm a retired public school teacher. And I got the A/V equipment on sale or used. In fact, the living room system was half-price. Emotiva was going around the country setting up their stuff in various Holiday Inns. I went to a local show and fell for their system instantly. I wanted the whole shebang (speakers, preamp, amplifier), but they didn't have anything left except back in their warehouse in Tennessee. Then one of the salesmen says to his boss, "Hey - this is the last show. If he buys the demo stuff, we don't have to lug it back to Tennessee." Bless the guy's heart - they offered it to me for half price!
