Mix Room - Corner Troubles : (

Thought I would be able to get rid of this corner closet all together and finish the wall to the edge - making a nice 90 degree corner for some 6" thick floor to ceiling broadband absorbers, or possibly "superchunks". However once I was actually able to see inside the closet, I found that this darn gas meter and pipe stick out a lot farther than expected. see pics. The closet projects about 12" forward from the rest of that wall, and the gas meter nearly as much. I'm not having much luck talking with the gas company about moving the meter - So finishing the wall even with the rest is no longer looking like an option. Any recommendations? Let's start simple - Should I Keep the closet though it would be relatively useless once I mount absorbers across the protruding corner (wouldn't be able to open closet door this way). Or remove the closet as planned - finish it flush at the bottom where I can and box it out w/ a trap panel (meter may need to be accessed at some point by gas co.)? Someone even suggested keeping the closet as is, but stuffing it full of insulation - It is a hollow door so I guess the low freq's would pass right through the door. But I'm not so sure how this would work in practice. I'm wide open for suggestions - but need to make a quick decision to keep up with the builder. This is for a mixing room that does not require heavy isolation - a good sounding room is the only goal here. The corner in question would be the front right when seated at mix position. See Gullfo's fantastic illustration below for a look at my room layout. Thanks in advance guys!

One question comes to mind. Does the gas company need to take a reading every month and or how does that work? Peace Tom

if you cannot get them to move it, i would just put a box around the meter and make a portion of the trap hinged so you can access the meter.

@Tom - The gas company is able to read the meter from the street. A van drives by and takes the readings every month. I finally was able to talk to an actual person at the Gas company today - which is no easy feat in Philadelphia. Unfortunately they didn't have any good news for me. In no way am I allowed to attempt to move the meter, and it would cost me in the neighborhood of $5000 for them to move the meter outside (where it should be anyway). So that's not happening. I was also told that the meter was due for replacement sometime in the next 5 years - so they would need to be able to have easy access to it when the time comes. A whole lotta BS if you ask me. @ Gullfo - Well thats almost what I have now - It's just disguised as a closet. The meter literally protrudes to the inside of the closet frame. Of course theres a good 7-8" of useless space behind the meter since they didn't use more appropriate piping :roll: If I box it out with a hinged access panel - I'm concerned with how I would treat that corner. It wouldn't be symmetrical with the left front corner and I wouldn't be able to go floor to ceiling with corner absorption panels. Any suggestions?

sometimes you have to do what you can. i'd try to box it in as small as possible and perhaps use lag bolts on the framing there so in a few years it can be reasonably disassembled and reassembled when they replace it.

Awaiting call from Gas company tomorrow. I may be able to move the meter to a diff location inside the room. Keeping fingers crossed it won't be too expensive.

$200 to have it moved within 5' of it's current location. Of course they poo-poo'd the ideal location for it - inside the garage. And they won't move it to my second choice location (inside the window bay) until I have a glass block window installed. Granted, I wanted to get a new window anyway, but I can't get a window guy here for some time and now everything else is on hold until that happens. Boooo : (