Studio Renovations

Hey everyone, it's Phil.

Back when I'd only first started teaching, Krysti had already been teaching for around 5 years already, and we both were taking classes at Bluffton University. We would teach out of one of the practice rooms there in the music building when we weren't in classes/ensembles. Krysti's schedule was pretty full considering her workload at school, and I had only a few students by the time we graduated. Once Krysti graduated from Bluffton and moved into the small house on college avenue we rented from Fred, she could teach out of there and then I could as well once we married.

It was good for a while, and I taught many of my students at their house at that point to save space at the studio.We even started having Kevin do guitar lessons with us and Sarah do voice, so fitting them in was during our break times. We were adding more and more students!


The only issue was space. The old house (the one that used to be a barn and was converted into a house) was all open to itself with only doors for the rooms upstairs. This meant we could only hold one lesson at a time.

 (Left: this picture is from when we were packing to move, but you can see how open everything was. The Everett piano used to cover the fireplace, and the Whitney piano was to the left, as pictured above.)

So during our first year of marraige we spent time during our walks around town looking at houses and fantasizing about which house would be good for having a studio and teaching in.




Our big goal was for it to be easily accessible, close to the school, and already pre-fit for teaching multiple lessons. (We did consider trying to use a storefront studio in the place beside the Dough Hook but ultimately decided against.) We'd looked at a couple houses but didn't feel strongly about one till we found the house on main street that we're at now. Since this house used to be a duplex, it made perfect sense and seemed well-suited to our needs as it had a public bathroom, a waiting room, and two rooms to fit a piano in and teach two lessons at once. Here's the second room (before) where I taught, plus the other teachers. It was perfect!

For a while. Then we kept adding more students.

Having so many students was great!! This was one of our goals because it provides some extra income so eventually once we have kids Krysti can back off from teaching such a heavy student load. But, the additional students posed a logistical problem: where do we put 'em?? Ultimately we could hold four lessons at once - two upstairs and two downstairs, one on a grand piano in the living/front room, and the other in our messy-always-somewhat-disorganized back room where the digital keyboard could fit.

But we did have a plan. We had decided it would be to our benefit to have some remodeling done to split space into more efficient, closed-off rooms. The second room upstairs had plenty of space and we projected it could be split into two, even three rooms; this would allow us to keep the majority of our teaching upstairs and leave the living space downstairs alone as much as possible. So after formally deciding that was our plan of action, it was relatively soon before we had someone who could do it and was available. So we left on vacation (albeit naively) thinking we were going to come home to a brand new upstairs, fully remodeled with its "i"s dotted and its "t"s crossed. Yeah, that was the surprise we mentioned before.

Suffice it to say the project was not nearly along as far as we would have liked. But as is the nature of digging up old history, some issues need time to properly address. There were things like old and moldy insulation that needed removing (and turned to powder when you touched it) and other considerations. We did have a bit of a panic moment upon arriving home and seeing the state of things, with things coated with dust -- though to their credit they did a wonderful job controlling it as best they could, considering the task!

Doug and his crew continued on after we arrived home, and things continued taking shape, from the studs being put in place for framing the walls and doorways to outlets being placed and electricity & heating being run in.

This is getting the ceiling drywalled so light fixtures & heating ducts can be easily installed in each room, and walls can be framed. Then electricity boxes installed.

Here's what the attic looks like; I'd never seen it before this! The other thing Doug and his crew did was prepare for and cooperate with M&R to get heating brought up to the new rooms. When M&R arrived, they did two things, bring up heating through Room 1 so it can be carried and split into the three new rooms, and break into/clean out the chimney stack and run a line through that as well. Dan also spent some time up here working to install new light fixtures into the hallway ceiling.

As our Christmas break progressed, we were able to continue planning for the spring session of lessons and see the continual process of the renovations. There was a lot of drywall upstairs - part of the design is in the soundproofing: a very important aspect of creating a music studio (and adding to one.) The new interior walls are very thick, having insulation and two layers of drywall, glued together with something called "green glue," a soundproofing measure. It expands a little in between to create extra space for sound to die in. One aspect of the whole operation that was time consuming was the drywalling, since mudding & sanding is a needed and lengthy process that just needs time in-between steps.

Time progressed, and more was accomplished. Here's the middle room as it was still in constuction.











Below is a picture of the guys installing a brand new window into Room 2. They had to take off the existing siding so they could cut in the new window. Apparently another window used to exist in the same area, and you can see the old siding underneath. (It's fun to catch a piece of the house's history!)

The next big thing was getting the woodwork in and then we were also priming the drywall, both walls and ceiling. As the break came to a close, we had a renovation party complete with Gromans, Foulkes & Yoders! We got the second piano moved back into its room (Mark's dolly cart helped a ton... --hah, a pun!) and we got the priming & painting completed in relatively short time.

Q.) How many guys does it take to move a piano??
A.) As many as it takes.

Here is the woodwork installed, plus the floor, leveled and carpeted. Diller's Flooring came and took care of that. They had to place whole plywood sheets on the floor then use a putty mixture to let the liquid find the level. After that they could lay the carpetin place. That alone made a HUGE difference with the soundproofing! Without it, it was still pretty live inside each room, being all solid surfaces.

Here are the rooms as they are now, Rooms 2, 3 & 4 - blue, brown & green!

 

So now we have four rooms upstairs, each usable for teaching! One other improvement which I mentioned also was new lighting.

Dan found these lights at Menards, so with a small roadtrip to Celina to pick up enough, we "saved big money" and got a really sharp & fun-looking deal which improves the visual quality of the studio, making it look more professional. So many cool things! Now that it's complete for the meantime (aside from painting the individual rooms, should we deem them soundproof enough), we can enjoy having less hassle in our schedule for both us and our teachers!

So what's next?? Next will be replacing the hallway carpet (there is still that patch of bare floor in the new hallway for now) which runs down the stairway, then replacing the carpet in Room 1. We've already decided Room 1's carpet will be purple.

If we need to in the future, we've also previously discussed as part of our plan the possibility of adding on to the 2nd floor to create a couple larger rooms. But if we start pushing 200 students, then we can start considering it! (We are currently just above 140, so you never know: The LORD provides.)