We bought a rehearsal studio! Oh my frickin god! What are we doing?! This is ridiculous!
Just some of the thoughts that ran through my head when this all started on the 1st July. But we're here now and I know it was the best decision we could've made! There is nothing like running your own business, all the decisions stop with you and the freedom you have to do as you please is genuinely thrilling.
We knew that we were going to have to do some cosmetic work to the studio to get it looking how we wanted and had factored that in when we took over from Jon and Fedelma. I guess it's kind of like when you buy a new home and you want to put your own stamp on how the place looks.
Luckily for us they did a bang up job of soundproofing the rooms so almost nothing has had to be done to this, save a bit of work on the doors and finishing off the ceilings so that slightly less sound escapes from these areas.
The place just needs a lick of paint and some freshening up so that when you walk into the place, it immediately feels welcoming. So we set about trying to create that
very atmosphere. The first thing we did was to open up the reception space. Previously the reception desk had been covered up so that no one could access it. The reason for this was that the previous owners had been taking overnight bookings where the band could access the studio 24 hours a day. With that in mind it made sense to make the reception impregnable. You don't want anyone wandering places they shouldn't.
As we won't be offering that service (sorry guys) we thought it'd make a lot of sense to take the extra cladding down and open up the space again.
We had some help from Terry and Kevin, good friends of ours who had popped by to have a look around the space. Terry's band
Jilk have already been in the studio and made very positive noises about the space and what we could do with it. It's great to have people around you who are so supportive of what you're trying to do.
So with more grit and determination we got the frame and plasterboard down from the reception space and the difference is amazing! It feels so much more open and inviting from the get go.