Upgrading my guitar...or downgrading?

Recently I've had loads of spare time and decided to put some of my time to use.  I've had Epiphone Les Paul sitting in my closet for years without being played, most of my electric guitar time was been taken up by my Delonge es-333.  A few years back I took my Les Paul apart and repainted it, but I wasn't satisfied with the outcome. Ever since I got my 333 I've loved the simple set up it has with a single pickup and single volume knob, yet its a bare bones setup that a lot of musicians prefer. With this in mind I decided to to transform my 2 pickup/2 knob/1 switch, into a single pickup single knob.

Here is the original guitar, as you can see its been sitting collecting dust. 

Guitar taken apart, pickups and hardware removed, also bolt on neck removed. 

After 2 sessions of stripping the paint with paint stripper. You can see some of the original paint.

Filling in the 2 extra holes where one of the knobs and the switch use to be.  Also filling in the extra pickup void. Had to cut a piece of wood to fill in, then filled the crack with wood filler. 

Sanded down the whole guitar, after hours of sanding I got the filler flush with the rest of the body. 

Filled in all the minor scratches with filler on both the front and backside. 

Sanded for another couple hours, got the body smooth as needed. 

Tapped up the back opening and the front screw holes for the bridge, also the gap for the neck. 

 

Prepped it for its first coat of primer.  Hung it by one of the screw holes for the neck. 

3 coats of primer and sanding later its ready for some paint. 

Got the stripes ready that I made fro painters tape, also made the circle with the "L" with the same tape. 

 

First coat of Glossy grey.  Looks a lot like the primer.  Did 2 more coats of the glossy grey. 

Added the striped and the "L" logo

Next I sprayed 3 coats of flat matte black to the entire guitar. 

Removed the painters tape to reveal the glossy grey graphics. 

sprayed a clear coat of matte on top, ended up doing 3 coats of this paint as well.  As you can kinda see it gave it a smokey tone to it which I wasn't going for but it turned out pretty cool. 

 

Added the hardware, pickups and knob back on...almost finished. 

Finally added the neck back on, now all I need is a new set up strings and it will be done!

 

After 2 days of almost nonstop work Finally finished.  the next looks weird since its a glossy finish, but I really liked the flat matte finished that you don't really see too often on a guitar.