home studio or living space? wwyd

[BaryMerry]

Ok so I realise this is a problem entirely of my own making, and I'm looking for some perspective. We've been in our current home for about a year and a half and we're slowly decorating, figuring out how best to use rooms etc. One of the things we're trying to achieve is for DH to have a dedicated home studio/music room (he's a music teacher/musician so this would be the equivalent of an office for him). It's worth mentioning at this point that he is a drummer - so the space needs to be pretty soundproof, wherever it is.

We have a living room with an adjoining sunroom and last year I suggested he make the sunroom his studio space. Up until then he'd been planning to build himself a studio in the double garage - but I reasoned that it might be better for him to be within the house, it could be made reasonably soundproof and is on a side of the house which is away from neighbours, plus it would be useful for the DDs too and he'd be able to use it straight away, whereas building a studio could take AGES and we couldn't really afford to do a proper conversion job and I wanted all his shit contained asap as it was all over the house.

So now it's a few months on and I miss the sunroom. The light in there is great most of the day, there's a great view of the side garden and park next door, it's warm in the spring/summer and I can envisage how I could turn it into a lovely extra living space. At the moment it's piled high with drums, amps, guitars, keyboards and various other crapola which DH loves to accumulate.

AIBU to ask him to reconsider the studio garage idea? We are soon to come into a bit of money so I think we could afford to do a proper conversion, which would mean he'd have garage space, studio space and we'd all enjoy a sunroom sitting area. But a) he's probably going to despair because it was my idea for him to use it in the first place and he (understandably) hates it when I go back and forward on ideas like this and b) he really doesn't enjoy discussing home plans at the moment at all because I think he gets a bit overwhelmed with the scale of the task - we have a large-ish house and a steady stream of jobs coming at us all the time!

How can I bring it up tactfully? Should I bring it up at all?? Can I make him think it's his idea (this tactic usually works)?!

Thanks for any opinions advice and for reading this far - it's turned out a longer post than I intended!

[wowfudge]

What's the issue if he currently has somewhere to work from and can get a purpose built studio constructed to his specifications. Nothing wrong with saying the reality hasn't been what you had expected.

[BaryMerry]

wowfudge that's certainly a reasonable assumption, and we did sort of go for the sunroom studio option as a 'let's try it and see how it works out' type of thing, but I have one of those husbands that is quite resistant to change, and if something is pretty much working he has little or no interest in exploring alternatives! If it ain't broke and all that...
In other words, I'm wondering if it's worth me going to the effort of trying to change his mind on the current arrangement or if anyone here is going to tell me that I ABU or convince me my first suggestion was a good one?!

[clairemarie2016]

Hi BaryMerry

I was browsing through here and came across your post about problems with drum noise in your house and what to do about it. I might be able to help you with a few suggestions.
I am a musician and recently started working for a company called Amadeus. I know exactly what a drummer faces as I lived with one for five years! One of the best things Amadeus does are "M-Pods".
This is a strong acoustically treated self contained room that is designed to be put up in about 6 hours by our team, and can be dismantled if the Pod needs to be moved to another location. They are mostly bought by drummers for obvious reasons, and they put them in garages, garden sheds, basements or in their houses.

The M Pods have thick layered wall panels set in a steel frame, a strong fully glazed acoustic door and two integrated fans that circulate the air to keep it fresh. These come in 3 fixed sizes, but we have just designed two medium sized pods to fit together to make a bigger room.
The interior and exterior wall panels can also be printed with anything you want to customise the walls. (E.g. woodlands, tropical landscapes, company logos, funny pictures) as long as the photo or image is over 300dpi. make it look like a man cave.....
I have added a couple of website addresses giving info. on these M Pods. If you are interested or have any other questions, I have more detailed data sheets I can email you if you want. You can get me on [email protected] I'm on this email every day
www.amadeus-equipment.co.uk/case-studies/m-pod-within-a-garage
www.amadeus-equipment.co.uk/products/mpod-acoustic-pods

I don't know if that is of any help, I just thought i would try to make a few people happy! Best of luck, Claire-Marie :-)