Time To Face the Strange...Changes

Well, I put these photos out of order, but I am not in the mood to change it around. Our garage-a black hole of stuff is a better term. Much of Tom's percussion equipment resides in the garage because we don't have enough space for it in the house. As a result, many of his instruments go unpracticed.
Things that we are going to sell or donate, plus tons of general music things from school that need a spot.
Where my car usually goes, but in interest of sorting the crap, my car is out roasting in the heat for a few days. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law love checking the status of our garage and our clutter. The garage is a work in progress.
(always?)
This is the old music room which is a small bedroom in the house. It formerly housed Tom and his instruments, but he could really only fit the marimba and his desk. Tom is cute, but not the neatest guy on the block, so we tried to come up with a better way to organize his stuff and get more instruments out for him to practice.

The solution was to make this small bedroom our master bedroom instead. We moved our bed and most of my stuff in here. We set up a small tv (courtesy of Julie-thanks!) and a portable DVD hooked into the tv (thanks, Grandma Sheila!) and set up camp. So far, it is working, but I have to add the closet doors back (once painted, of course) and sort through my stuff and get all in the closet. It should work okay for me. Tom is displaced a bit, but he'll figure it out.

The main goal was moving Tom's space into the master bedroom, which is larger and easier to put out more music stuff. We took all of my stuff out of the walk-in and moved his clothes on one side and the other side will be his cases and percussion items. We brought the bookshelf in for his music too. It is not sorted but that is one of his projects. See Connor playing with the talking drum block (courtesy of my dad years ago!)

The computer is on the side and then he arranged his marimba facing toward the middle of the room, with the drumset, congas and bongos in a close knit circle.


And the steel pan too. He has already been practicing a bunch and it is slowly freeing up some space in the garage now that his equipment is in this room. He still has to sort boxes of misc. crap and redo his file cabinet, but this is a good start.

Until we can sell our house and get one with more rooms, this will do just fine. Tom worries that he is taking a lot of space, but in the end, it really serves to make him happier and I am totally happy in a small spot (I really am!!!). We'll see when we return from CA if we'll keep it-that was the plan to re-evaluate, but I am really happy with it. Plus, when we have guests, they can be in our room easily and we can set up camp in the music room with some simple moves. It's great.

And the happiest part is all of the great music that fills our house throughout the day. That is the best part for all of us.