Before and After...

I have been wanting to do a side-by-side comparison of pictures from when I first took my current job to pictures of how things look now (after I've beautified everything), so here goes. When I took the job six years ago, things were in a really bad state.

Doesn't the mini-fridge look appetizing? I scrubbed it out and it is the one I'm still using now. This is the Before.

After (bottom right corner of the picture).

This is the bottom of my desk. The band office was flooded the summer I was hired and all the water puddled under the desk - creating a huge mold fest. I couldn't replace the desk, so Chris doused it with Clorox Bleach, let it dry, and then covered the molded bottom with a piece of plywood. Chris also reinforced the desks. They were not sturdy at all. He took them apart (very easily if I remember correctly), used his handy power drill, and added reinforcements. We also went to the Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity Garland Restore and bought new handles for the drawers since most of them had fallen off. They like to come loose even now, but I just try to screw them tighter so they stay on.

He does not look happy, but I am SO thankful for all that he did and continues to do to help me and make me happy.

You can see me in the background starting to clean the fridge. I thought it was a fair trade. I would clean the fridge if Chris would clean and reinforce the two teacher desks.

After (desk 1). Chris did not replace the handles on this desk - looks like it's time though (see the two drawers without handles?).

After (desk 2). This is the desk that I use. The other one is currently the "helper" desk.

Practice Room Hallway Before. There was just junk everywhere - on carts, student desks, buckets, etc. There was no sense to anything.

Practice Room Hallway After.

Here's another shot (from around the corner).

Another shot of the practice room hallway as it is today. I decorated the bulletin board that was already there as a Music Enrichment board. Right now it has calendars and comics on it. Once there are established private teachers, they can utilize the board for schedules, info, etc.

Practice Room 1 Before: a french horn cemetery.

 Practice Room 1 After: a useful practice room with an electric piano and a computer station with SmartMusic.

Practice Room 2 Before: more discarded instruments. By the way, these have since been repaired and placed in new cases - good to go!

Practice Room 2 After: another nice computer station with SmartMusic. This desk was donated by me (was once in my home office). It was too large, took up too much space, and I never used it. Instead of donating it to Goodwill, we donated it to my school.

Practice Room 3 Before: I think this one might have actually been used as a practice room.

Practice Room 3 After: Practice room with upright piano. I put it in this room and the electric keyboard in the Practice Room 1 so that two accompanists could be working on solos with students at the same time and have the middle room as a buffer.  The entire band wing was repainted and re-carpeted a couple of years ago - it really did help to improve the look of everything.

The uniform room Before: it was used as marching percussion storage. The metal shelving that the snares were stored on was very flimsy and fell to pieces when I took it out. It went in the trash.

Uniform storage room After (note: it did not receive new paint). I hung up all the band shirts. There were like four or five different versions. I also put the shoes up on the high shelf. At first, I was going to donate these shoes that I found (not knowing that they might in fact be needed), but hesitated and held on to them. I have learned that they are necessary to have. There are always some students who do not own black shoes and they cannot afford them. Loaning them a pair of black dress shoes is better than them wearing the alternative - which is typically tennis shoes of various colors. This room is spacious enough to store unused timpani, rolling chairs, and a shelving unit with older horns and baritones that aren't being used and thus not worth it to get repaired and stored in the instrument storage room. I also keep some tools/toolboxes on the shelving unit. This is basically the catch-all room for stuff that doesn't really have a designated place.

Hallway infront of the music library Before. I am so glad I got rid of all of the broken metal stands. I only held onto a couple handfuls of metal stands and donated the rest to the high school (the ones that worked, that is). They were so rusted! One of the students had to get stitches above her eye when she tried to pull her stand up and the top flew off. My assistant the first year gave herself a bloody nose by a broken stand too.

Same place After: no clutter.

Front of Instrument Storage Room (Small Band Rehearsal Room) Before: more clutter, a very outdated stereo, chalkboard (sorry for the blurriness).

Small Band Rehearsal Room After: Clean, whiteboard put over the chalkboard (I'm allergic to chalk). The tubas are normally not there as they are at students' homes (these are the take-home tubas). The carts are not there either - there were just there when I took the picture. The marching bass drums aren't normally there either.

Small Rehearsal Room Before. Look at the state of these instruments!

Small Rehearsal Room After. Clean.

Large Rehearsal Room Before. Large instruments were kept on plastic shelving in what they used as the back of the rehearsal room. The banner was not laminated and wasn't in real good shape. There were also these dumb pendant lights that didn't work very well - and were good targets for kids to throw stuff up in. In fact, I remember a kid burning candy that he threw up there.

You can see the old percussion cabinet - it was this old wood thing that was falling apart. It gave kids splinters! You can also see the trophies on the window sills - looked kinda trashy.

Large Rehearsal Room After (packed up for the summer and taken from the side). No pendant lights! :) It's so bright and airy.

Here's a look from the other side of the room. I use this as the front of the rehearsal room now. I thought it made more sense to face away from the choir room and from the door from the hallway. You can see that I have a projector with screen now, the two large folio cabinets are up front, there is the computer station with keyboard, stereo, and speakers, etc.

Here's a wordle of what the kids' goals last year (what they wanted the band program to be known as). To the left of it are my three rules - each in their own frames - 1. Follow Directions Quickly, 2. Make Smart Choices, 3. Keep Your Teacher Happy.

These are the banners I had made hung on either side. By the way, I also created the Bussey Band Owlet Logo - I put two capital B's back to back (for Bussey Bands) and then designed the owl around them. My sister than made my drawing into a digital graphic. I think it is so striking. It helped to create an identity for the band program.

This is my solution for not having a trophy case right now. That is on my To-Do List. I think it looks better than them being on the window sills though. I'd really like to put an actual trophy case (with sliding glass doors and everything) on the wall to the right of the doors. If you look five pictures up from this one, the spot I want to put the trophy case is where the chairs are.

The back corner of the large rehearsal room Before. This was the front of the rehearsal room back then. Notice the TV screen (no projectors back then) and the computer. There were no computers in the band office. The directors actually sat out here when they needed to do work on the computer. I'm just now noticing too that there was no printer! Yikes! The door in the picture is the door to the choir room. Also, those blue cafeteria chairs were the only chairs back then - no Wenger music chairs.

The back corner of the large rehearsal room After. Ahh...Wenger chairs and stands. Also, that corner is now the percussion corner. There is a shelving system for stands and snares. The toms are stored on the back window sill. There is a tool cabinet for sticks, mallets, and accessories. There is an actual concert bass drum (there was not a concert bass drum when I got the job). There is just so much with percussion that has improved since I came on board.

Cubbies in the small rehearsal room Before. Not absolutely terrible. These became storage for beginning percussion bell kits. I'm having my kids get home practice marimbas now though, so these aren't really being utilized. I'm going to have to think on it.

Band office storage Before. This thing was disgusting. It had stuff on and in it that we couldn't identify. Two things we were able to identify were a bag of Dum Dum lollipops that had a busted and leaking can of ant spray all over them.

We ended up throwing this away.

Band office storage After. Organized drawers!

Storage Room Before. Wooden pallets, a sousaphone in bad shape, dust, mold...Yuck!

Storage Room After. Still kinda grimy (this is where the A/C stuff runs), but not nearly as bad. The oldest instruments in the worst shape are stored back here.

I also use this room to store the ice chests and to park the carts.

Dottie Before. This picture was amongst all the original band hall pictures. We had only had her a couple of years at this point.

Dottie After. She's still our sweet baby, but not as young and energetic anymore.

And last but not least, the Music Library Before. Chris helped to sort the music into categories.

Music Library After. Music in file storage boxes, alphabetical order by grade level in the following categories: March, Christmas, Popular, Program, Pep Band. There's still quite a number of loose sheet music parts and scores to be filed, but I'll get it done.

Well, this was a walk down memory lane. I really am proud of the physical improvements I've made to this facility. You wouldn't really have known it back then, but my school has the best facilities in the entire district. I think it is very apparent now. There are still a few improvements to be made and I need to get some new instruments, but I'm pretty blessed to have what I do. I hope you've enjoyed this little tour and are inspired to spruce up your space too. It is possible to clean up a dingy band room - it just takes time, elbow grease, and some money.