Our New House

A few months ago, Wendy and I bought a house. Not just any house, but a large one. Of course, our primary consideration in selecting one for our needs was the size, location, and layout of a potential studio space, since my previous home studio, although it suited my needs at the time very well, ended up being little on the small side. The property we finally found was only 1.5km from our townhouse in Oakville (perfect for business, since none of my current students would be inconvenienced), featuring an open-concept living room that would be ideal for enclosure into a sizable studio space.

Here's what my new studio looks like, thanks too the awesomeness of Michael Corridor and Nicolas Groenewegen in the quick but efficient renovation process:

One of the coolest things about my new studio is that the ceilings are 14 feet high! Needless to say, it's a very singer-friendly room. In addition, my 70's-vintage Yamaha U1, feeling the arm weight of the years, needed a refurbishing rather badly. Paul Clement was able to replace the original Yamaha hammers with a new set of German Abel hammers, completely changing the sound. It's now mellower than before (having lost the original Yamaha brightness), but with a much wider dynamic range. In fact, any smaller room than this probably wouldn't do justice to the instrument and the size of tone it can produce. And yes, it's only a U1. Paul also did a lot of work on the action, which resulted in a much more responsive touch. For those of you who are interested in Paul's modifications, take a look at his project summary w/photos.

So, the inordinate amount of time required to put an offer on the house, arrange financing, put our townhouse on the market (thankfully, it sold in two days for just under the asking price), pack all our belongings, supervise the renovations, move in late March, and unpack everything (and did I mention that March is the busiest time of the year?), meant that blogging has taken a back seat to what was hopefully the last move we'll do in a long time ever. I finally have a studio large enough to hold master classes and small house concerts. When the time comes, I'll easily be able to fit a grand of any size into the room.

And as of this afternoon, my taxes were completed. Back to blogging...