Unable to convert MDAPI Project -> SFDX

Question

Trying to convert an existing MDAPI project into an SFDX project.

MDAPI Project is in ~/Documents/Workspace/TheProject and contains a src directory

From the ~/SFDX Projects directory in terminal I type:

sfdx force:project:create --projectname mytest

Output:

create mytest/sfdx-project.json create mytest/README.md create mytest/config/project-scratch-def.json

Look good so far

While in the MDAPI directory I type

sfdx force:mdapi:convert -r src -d ~/Documents/SFDC\ Projects/mytest

And bam, fail with

ERROR: This directory does not contain a valid Salesforce DX project.

▸ This directory does not contain a valid Salesforce DX project.

Not sure what is going on here as I am just starting to try and wrap my head around DX. I cannot get out of the gate it seems.

Anyone have some ideas or troubleshooting tips?

The contents of mytest directory are:

README.md
config
force-app
sfdx-project.json

and the project json is

{
  "packageDirectories": [
    {
      "path": "force-app",
      "default": true
    }
  ],
  "namespace": "",
  "sfdcLoginUrl": "https://login.salesforce.com",
  "sourceApiVersion": "41.0"
}

in case it matters

Answer 1

Seems logic does not win here.

I thought that since I was in the MDAPI Project directory and specified the root and destination that it would be smart enough to understand what to do when performing sfdx force:mdapi:convert.

Well, guess not.

In order to convert a MDAPI project into an SFDX Project you MUST run the command from within the SFDX Project Directory

So running this command from the ~/Documents/SFDX\ Projects/mytest directory

sfdx force:mdapi:convert -r ~/Documents/Workspace/MDAPIProject

worked