Drum Roll, Please

Since moving into the house last summer, we've continued to work on projects here and there.  Some are really just small and require nothing more than a bit of decorating 'polish'.  Others are a bit more complex and require expertise that neither Kevin nor myself possess.

Case in point: the drum room.

This one little out building has run the gamut of incarnations.  In a former life, the little room in the back was a playhouse for me and Deb.  When we got a bit older, it was still a playhouse, but most of the 'play' revolved around playing school where Deb was always the teachers, and I was always the student.  (Huh, little wonder that she fulfilled her prophecy and has been a teacher for, oh, ever!)

When we had the pool put in, we transformed the room from a playhouse to a pool cabana.  The front of it came off and a tiki bar went in.  It stayed that way for a number of years, even though the tiki bar wasn't getting a whole lot of use.  The tiki bar got the heave-ho when I decided that I wanted to turn it into an office for me; I had big plans to run a home based business.  I was going to be a 'Girl Friday' of sorts, and run errands for busy corporate types.  Hey, it was the mid/late 80's and this was a hoppin' idea for that time!  I eventually talked dad into this being a great (okay, somewhat viable) idea and he agreed to help me with the construction.  We worked side by side re-building the front of the room so that it would be fully enclosed once again.  Moreover, he worked and I schleped, but we did work together.

After a while I decided that the business idea had kinda fizzled, as had my enthusiasm for it, and the building just sat for a bit.  Not long, though, as shortly afterward dad turned it into an office for himself while he ran a home based business.  I often teased him by asking "Aren't you glad I had the bright idea to run a home based business?  This sure is a nice office!  ;o)"  It remained dad's office until he passed away.  When we moved in last year, we knew that eventually we'd be turning it into Kevin's drum room, but we had too much on our plates to begin working on that right away.

Late this past spring after a false start (a wacky story all on it's own - trust me!), the planets finally aligned - or rather the finances and the contractor - and the drum room began it's new life.  Kevin had been storing his drums in there since our move and used it to practice, but it wasn't ideal and didn't have enough insulation/sound deadening material to satisfy our little neighborhood.  Besides, after all these years, it really just needed a general overhaul.

So without further ado, here are some photos of the transformation ...

Before:

In upgrading the space, we removed all of the old wood paneling, replaced some damaged wood and added new wood where there should have been studs but they were missing, raised the floor 2" (to help with sound and help alleviate any rain flooding), installed a TON of insulation, added can lights, installed a new a/c unit, painted walls and stained the wood floor.  

The 'After' pictures only tell part of the story as Kevin removed the piece of rug and stained the floors after these photos were taken:

What a H.U.G.E. difference!  It looks so nice now, and is so much more functional for what Kevin needs for a drum room.  Although he wouldn't like the drums in his office, I know that dad would be really pleased with how the room turned out.