What to do when you have no room for a flute room

The problem: 

I have no home for my flute within my home.

The solution:

Creating a dedicated practice space in a corner of my living room with a bookshelf, a mirror, a white board, and a combination lock.

Ever since moving out of my parent’s house, I dreamed of having a flute room. Imagine a home office with scores instead of books, professional recording equipment, soundproofing, a mirror, a small desk, a wind-up metronome, several professional music stands, and an area rug to tie the room together. 

I never got my flute room for several reasons: I stopped playing for years, my kids needed rooms to sleep in and, until recently,  I was never as organized as I wanted to be. But I think the greatest hurdle between me and the flute room-of-my-dreams is the cost of real estate. I live in Los Angeles and as of this writing a single-family home in my neighborhood costs about $813/square foot. I was able to accept the fact that I have no extra rooms in my small, urban dwelling but I could not accept my flute practice being hidden away any longer. The only unused space in our home was a corner of our living room near the front door. I claimed it! 

I started practicing in the space and I loved the natural light. I measured the space to get dimensions. We had a spare mirror and I claimed that too!  Because the space is so small I knew I could only fit one small piece of furniture. I settled on a ladder bookshelf as I needed something that was narrow but still had surface area to put my metronome, phone (for recording), tuner, and other materials. I added the white board for practice notes and added a fingering chart for reference (mostly for trills). 

The greatest challenge was securing my flute music. I was afraid my kids would use my scores and etude books as coloring books. I wanted to have my sheet music available but only available to me so I needed to make a locking cabinet. It’s surprisingly easy to turn a regular cabinet into a locking cabinet with a staple hasp, a drill, some screws, and a combination lock.

Ironically my flute itself isn’t stored in my flute corner. My living room is also a play space for my kids and I can’t risk them getting a hold of my flute or piccolo so my flute and collapsible music stand are stored on a high shelf in my bedroom closet. 

My maroon ergonomic foot mat was a nice addition to the space. It matches my couch and it really ties the room together.