By Juan C. Ayllon The Waze app is generally reliable, but after it announced I'd arrived, parked outside an iron gated estate at the end of a winding road several digits shy of my destination in the northeastern Illinois sticks, I am forced to thumb through emails on my iPhone to find the invitation's detailed directions. Several minutes later, I pull up to the correct address and, walking in, am greeted by hellos, handshakes and a full-bodied and detailed-rich aural experience.
The drive mirrors the shared pain of the majority of guests here; numbering some 15 to 20, our quest for audio Nirvana in our dwellings is fraught with twists, turns and mistakes, as well as successes.
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By Juan C. Ayllon Traditionally in America, when you retire, you downsize your home, simplify, slow down, maybe take a part-time job, settle into a hobby like golf, and indulge in nostalgia.
In keeping with the script, having recently retired as an educator in Illinois, I recently sold our home and together with Belle, moved into a smaller one. That said, I still have a lot left in the tank and have set a goal of working another 10 years full-time, but otherwise, I am pretty much on track with the norm. By Juan C. Ayllon I was excited about building my new listening space. I had the ideal dimensions. I had a plan. I even marked off some tentative new wall boundaries in blue tape on the basement's unfinished cement floor. And then, following an innocuous conversation between Belle and our adult daughter, Colleen, they were scuttled.
"Why put up all those walls in the basement?" Belle asked. "It will look really boxy and shrink the space!" she suggested. "Why not simply keep it open?" By Juan C. Ayllon Two weeks ago, Belle and I downsized, selling our former home and moving into a smaller one. Now, we had agreed to complete the unfinished basement (where my listening space goes), however, with construction costs inflated by the real estate craze, we suspected that our plans may be delayed for a long while.
Thankfully, we found out last weekend that lumber costs are coming back down and, following dinner with old friends, that Mike and June, who run a commercial flooring concern, can help us out with the flooring and connect us with reputable and reasonable contacts in construction after we formulate solid floor plans for accurate bidding. |
Juan C. AyllonA writer, artist, educator and owner of Prairie Audio Man Cave, he lives with his wife, Isabel (AKA Belle), and their Goldendoodle, Liam, enjoys listening to high fidelity music and all things hi-fi at their home in the greater Chicagoland area.. Archives
March 2024
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