My house marks the end of "old Asheville" on my road as you can see by the houses across the way as viewed from my porch. $$$ have come to town in a big way.

No matter where you look, you are surrounded by mountains with names like Pisgah, Chestnut Top, Flat Iron and, of course, Mount Mitchell, tallest peak east of the Rockies.

The 11 1/2X17 front room is proving an acoustic challenge with it's heart pine floors and knotty pine plank paneling; too much treble and not enough bass. Even the ceiling is a negative as it's those old acoustic tiles dropped down to 90". I've been moving around my Owens-Corning panels and rolls of R-13 as well as re-positioning the speakers almost daily. This is the best so far but still not good enough:

I wouldn't have the R-13 by the window but Muse needs a perch and loves the warmth of the plastic! Ultimately, when we have a little warmer weather, I'll build and mount several of the panels on stands and place them to block the window for serious listening.

Meanwhile, I'm just enjoying casual listening to CDs and studying maps of hiking trails. My daughter looks 'swell', (ha!) now in her third trimester which also has me hatching plans to shamelessly spoil my soon to arrive granddaughter. Life is good!