Hi everyone

Soooooo, I am deep down a rabbit hole and I need suggestions and ideas.

I dug out a 20year old iCute PC case from me garage to turn into a home NAS as it has lots of room for drives etc. Things that modern pc's don't really have apart from the boring HTPC ones. I thought why not, lets have a project whilst saving for the actual internals LOL.

I have stripped it down to give it a thorough clean and originally I was going to spray paint the frame a dark colour as I don't want light metal inside. My aim is sort of dark but not boring, ideally a little bit of light from inside. I will get an RGB front fan, but literally its not going to be throwing rainbows, I'm thinking subtle blue/purple light.

So I went through many through processes and this is where I am (excuse the brain dump):

\- clear acyrilic side panel has a very annoying crack! so leaving that as it is which was originally planned is not possible. 

\- I was going to spray paint - but now I am leaning down the vinyl wrap (for BOTH side panels, rear panel maybe) - cutting a square around vent whole. This has annoyed me as I wanted a clear side for a little light to come through. So now I'm like, do I do frosted, or a dark blue and make some intentional lines to expose some clear panel. GRRRRRR

\- When I stripped it down, I was like...ohhh I can just leave the front exposed and maybe put a mesh over it, but that seems more difficult then its worth. So now I'm thinking I should use the plastic front cover. However those grey 5.25 covers have to change. I hate them. Find simple blanks seems to be difficult where I am. So maybe I just vinyl wrap them too.

\- As you can see the front is black and chrome. I removed the front turbine which would have impeded airflow from the black front and will just put the mesh with chrome ring back. Unless someone has another option. I dont think wrapping the front is an option as its got curves and stuff going on.

\- I got 2 x 5.25 drive converters on way. To turn them into 2.5 and 3.5.

So yeah, this is where I am at. I don't want to spend a fortune! I would like a front 5.25 power button, control panel but those seem to be very expensive. 



So really guys, chuck ideas at me, what would you do?

It's going to be a great case, its got lots of drive storage. I'm going to put a good 120/140mm intake fan on front and a good exhaust as those will basically be the only 2 fans. However it wont have a GPU it'll be onboard iGPU with 12th or 14th gen intel (I will upgrade cpu cooler also).

I want the case to look decent, but at the same time I only have a limited budget for it.

I appreciate any help and suggestions.

Modding an Old PC for a home server - need advice!