The Barn: Dreaming and Drawing (Pt. 1)

In my last post, I mentioned that I had just built a “studio” and I’m calling it The Barn. The Barn was a gigantic step for me as a musician. I had many reasons for doing this but here are the main ones:

1. I wanted to learn more about Logic Pro and how to make my music sound good without paying other people to do it for me. I knew the basics and wanted to play around in the software but I didn’t have the space for recording vocals.
2. I didn’t want to pay studio fees.
3. I needed my own space because me and my mom are really close and when we start talking, we just keep talking and neither one of us gets any work done. (She works from home too. My dad is usually out taking pictures since he is the photographer for our local news paper).

 
So, back in February, I was talking to my parents about how I want to record my own music. Earlier in my years, I had always talked about building on to the playhouse in the back yard or enclosing the “first living room” (originally our only living room until my parents added on to the house). My dad had The Building where he had all of his woodworking stuff at and, doggone it, I wanted my own area too!
 
We almost closed in the “first living room” but then I quickly decided that with the money I had been saving up for, like, the entirety of my life, I wanted my OWN space where I didn’t have to tell them to be quiet when I was recording (because the microphones I use pick up the lights sometimes).
 
I started getting serious and I started looking up garden shed type buildings where I could just convert the inside of it to how I wanted it. Originally, I thought I wanted a 10’x12’ because at the time, my dorm room was 8’x10’ and I figured that I would be okay with something just a LITTLE bigger. I think I looked through magazines of these for a month. There was a place in town that sold customizable buildings such as these and I drove by multiple times, without stopping, to just glance at them.
 
Finally, after talking to other musicians who had kind of done the same thing, I came to the conclusion that I would want this area much larger. So, I opted for the 12’x24’ barn style shed. During this time, I was also drawing out floor plans and trying to design my space online. After knowing what size I would actually want, it was easier for me to go about planning the inside and where things would go. I dug through my old 5th grade school supplies (not even sure why we still had them) and found some graph paper. From one interior design class that I took in high school, I could still remember the shapes and what they meant when it came to blueprints. I drew out the first sketch and that was the basis for The Barn.
 
Over the period of the next month, I drew sketches on graph paper and measured out everything that I had in my dorm that would go into The Barn. Then, I went to the place that sold empty sheds and talked them about prices and the different types of styles they had to offer. I knew I wanted lofts because I needed storage space. After getting a quote, I went home and thought about if I really wanted to do this. I did.
 
A few weeks later, I went BACK to the building place in town and just sat in one that would be relatively the size I wanted. I took a sketch book so I could visualize. I think I sat there for an hour or two just dreaming up the interior.
 
More time passed and one of my aunts had decided to move to the beach into a fully furnished house. But she wasn’t selling her house at “home” fully furnished. That meant extra furniture. She ever so graciously donated her couch, recliner, carpet and carpet padding, trunk that looks really cool, and side table, to the “Brittany Foundation” (aka me).
 
Finally, after getting all of my ideas together, I went to the building place in town and showed them my blueprints. They gave me another, more accurate, quote and I got to pick out what color my Barn was going to be (I opted for a tan color since it matched my parent’s house). The nice lady sent in the order and told us to check back with them at about 8 weeks.
 
My initial thought was “Holy Jesus are you kidding me? 8 weeks? That’s enough time for me to regret this decision!” *spoiler alert: I don’t regret it * Then I thought about it a little more and realized that it’s not really that long because somebody has to build the thing. If I was the one building it, it would take much longer considering I’m not into construction.
 
My goal was to have The Barn delivered by graduation so that I could just move everything out of my dorm into it so that “stuff” wouldn’t crowd the living room. Well, it was delivered on the Monday after my graduation. I just didn’t think through that the inside needed to be completed before I moved things in.
 
Check back for next week’s continuation blog post about The Barn!
 
Until then, keep playing.
 
Brittany