We had an old chest of drawers in which the drawer runners which were so troublesome that we thought of throwing it out.  It had 12 drawers and they all were sticking or the sides were collapsing. No matter what I did, the drawers wouldn’t work!  My partner suggested making a sound desk out of it.  At that time I was using a large table for all my recording and effects equipment so I thought: ‘Why not?’

Using the drawers in this manner was more compact and it was perfect for the old hi-fi system I’d just bought from an auction for $40. As a lover of music, I still play original recordings – so I need analog musical playing devices which include a CD and tape deck. I’m a bit of a purist about my vinyl so I use an early 1950’s Phillips floor standing player in original (and perfect) condition. I’ll post on that separately another time.

Anyway, on to the making of the Retro Sound Desk!

The speaker cabinets (re-used) I covered with a banner I picked up from a recycling depot called reverse garbage – they look a treat! The banner had a huge laughing man’s head featured on it in black and white. As you can see, I’ve used the mouth section of the head for one speaker (the symmetry of covering one noise production outlet with the image of another sat nicely!) and the forehead section of the head for the other speaker (because let’s face it, music isn’t composed, performed and recorded without a lot of brain power).

What a paint job….WOW!

The paint finish was a work of pure inspiration. Often, my partner and I talk about how to finish a piece so that the appearance of the design matches the functionality and personality of the piece. We knew it had to be decorative and dramatic but the speakers had set a precedent: it couldn’t be too ‘matchy-matchy’. Therefore, we experimented with an irregular pinstripe in red, black and gold. You can see the results above.

If you would like to see a more detailed description of how I made this you can look at this instructables link.