Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Fall 2014 Playlist for Teens

We interrupt this renovation saga with a playlist!  I was updating my playlists for the fall and here are a few new songs my teen/college classes have been enjoying.  I say "teens" because some of these songs have some questionable PG-13 subject matter, so use with caution (as far as I know, there are no swear words).

Stretching Songs

Stay High (Hippie Sabatoge Remix) - Tove Lo (questionable subject matter)
Unkiss Me - Maroon 5
Stolen Dance - Milky Chance
My Fault - Imagine Dragons
Work Song - Hozier
First (Hold My Hand) - Cold War Kids

Upbeat Songs

Celeste - Ezra Vine - an indie rock tune, good for warm-ups
Let The Groove Get In - Justin Timberlake
Flirt (Acoustic or regular version) - Zac Waters - both links link to YouTube because this song is not on iTunes yet!!
King of the World - Young Rising Sons
Dear Future Husband - Meghan Trainor (some questionable lines in this song, so beware)
Fireball (Instrumental Version) - In the Style of Pitbull

Lyrical/Contemporary Songs

I Wanna Dance With Somebody - Bootstraps - link opens in YouTube
Still - Daughter
Photograph - Ed Sheeran Riptide - Vance Joy


How has the beginning of the new dance year been for you?  Found any new music?  Share in the comments!

The Dance Buzz is an iTunes affiliate

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Renovation.. Unsteady Progress

A few weeks into June, with nothing other than a new wall accomplished, I admitted to myself that having the room ready for July summer classes was a bit ambitious.  Could we have held classes with a boombox on the carpet?  Sure.  Was that the first impression of the new and exciting space I wanted to give my clients. Uh, absolutely not.

So, onto painting.  But wait!  First the other studio location has to have a pipe burst!  And flood the entire space!  And ruin lots of things!  And require insurance inspectors and summer camp last-minute changes and new rugs and potentially ruined marley!  Because chaos!

::deep breath::

So that was a fun weekend of clean-up and tears and then realizing that a pipe bursting during summer and destroying a bunch of old costumes is not the worst thing in the world, even if it is inconvenient and a pain to clean up (imagine if it happened a week before recital and ruined THOSE costumes?!).  It is also just a bit disconcerting to find your entire space covered in water.




But, back to the matter at hand - oh yeah, I was supposed to be painting, not mopping up water.

And look, a new window!


It turned out, when picking out window sizes that this size was the best one to go with because any bigger was a big jump in expense. 


Making progress...

To Do List
X Connect spaces
X Build waiting room wall
X Waiting room window
X Paint waiting room
X Paint dance room
- Install dance floor
- Furnish waiting room
- Buy sound system
- Ballet barres in dance room
- Order and install mirrors

Next up... flooring!

Sunday, October 12, 2014

The Renovation Begins...

So the first task in the New Space, was to connect the new space to the old space.

A refresher on what we are trying to accomplish:

So I began renting the space in June with the very, very VERY optimistic goal (did I mention VERY optimistic) of having it ready in time for July summer classes.

My contractor and I went over what I wanted and he gave suggestions and little tweaks that made more sense with things like electrical outlets and windows and building code.

And then on June 2 (five days before our end of year recital) the work began!

It was amazing how quickly the wall went up - they framed it out and had the sheetrock up in no time.  The hole is for the observation window eventually.



Looking through the "window" into the dance room.


And connecting the two space (new space is purple, existing studio is beige).




Ahhh!  I don't know why, but when I saw this, I started getting super excited!  It's real, it's real!



Looking back through at the narrow waiting room.


So that was pretty much it with the professional help other than the mirrors and window installation, the rest is on me and my husband!

To Do List
X Connect spaces
X Build waiting room wall
- Waiting room window
- Paint waiting room
- Paint dance room
- Install dance floor
- Furnish waiting room
- Buy sound system
- Ballet barres in dance room
- Order and install mirrors

Next up... painting!

Friday, October 10, 2014

Summer Moving, Happened So Fast!

Summer moving, havin' a bla-a-ast!

Summer?  In October?  Ok, its been a crazy last few months - but I finally have had some time to write about my summer adventures!  Hope you are all having a wonderful start to your school years - I've missed blogging and am happy to get back to it.

A little background - I have two studio locations, with the smaller location having one dance room. We are in a strip of businesses and we are currently the second-to-last unit from the end. The last unit on our end used to be rented by a Curves (workout for women), but the owner decided to move on and the space went up for lease last January.  It sat vacant for a few months and I looked at the space, did some calculations, negotiated the price and by June, we were in contract!

It may sound like I jumped in quickly, but in reality, I tried to make sure it was a smart decision, talked it over with just about everyone I could think of who could give me some perspective and triple-checked my break-even calculations.

So here is a super short tour of what we started with, and I apologize for the poor quality cellphone pictures:

That is standing in the front of the building, looking towards the back. The doorways back there lead to a utility closet (furnace / AC units) and bathroom.

 And here is standing in the back by the bathroom and looking at the front.  Our existing space is to the right ("through" the purple wall). Windows look out onto the sidewalk and parking lot and there is an exterior door to the left.  Also strangely located air conditioner to the left and yellow ladder, which did not come with the space, much to my husband's disappointment.

Here is a floorplan to help visualize. The new space is in purple:

So as you can see, the purple Curves space is a loooong room, but with a lot of potential!  And a lot of PURPLE.  Purple walls, purple trim, purple rug. What's hard to see in the photos is that the ceilings are actually 10' tall - which is awesome!

After brainstorming, our potential game-plan into turning this into a functional dance studio was this:


1) Divide the space and create a waiting area - one of the biggest struggles of our existing space was the waiting room was very narrow and small.  It was impossible for anyone with a stroller to enter and would be crazy when one class was leaving and another arriving.  I wanted to make the new waiting room a little bit deeper to help fix this problem.

2) Adding connecting doorways - we needed to connect the two spaces together, by joining the waiting rooms and in another spot.  In the waiting room, I wanted an open doorway to make the rooms feel very open and encourage overflow from the narrow waiting room into the larger one.  

I also wanted to a door connecting the two studios, but <> apparently the wall between the two studios was filled with bricks?!  My contractor found this to be annoying and confusing (as did I).   The only other place that had just sheetrock separating the two spaces was all the way in the back through the furnace closet.  Not ideal, but as Tim Gunn says, we made it work.

I know you are anxious for beautiful before and after photos, which I PROMISE will happen, but in another post!
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