My husband has suggested we swap our two main rooms around. He wants somewhere for a giant TV screen and there is no suitable wall in the sitting room for various reasons. So in exchange for giving up my existing room to be a home cinema I get to use a much bigger room for my teaching: about 16' x 12' or 5m x 3.5m if you work better in metric.

The room is more-or-less rectangular, with one corner used for the door, which is set in a diagonal across the corner. One short wall has a fireplace in the middle; the adjacent long wall has two windows with a radiator between. The door comes between the other two walls. I can't put the (upright) piano in the obvious place, which is at the far end of the blank long wall, as it would back on to my husband's study and he works from home. So it will have to go at the other end of this wall, next to the door. It can't go on to the blank short wall, as that will back on to the new TV.

I need to decide several things: what sort of storage to get, and where to put it so that I won't have my pupils in a direct line between me and the vital cupboards. I need to decide if I do as I do now, and teach from the piano stool, or if I move to the piano only when I need to use it. I need some flexible seating so that I can have several pupils in at once, and so that it can be moved into another room if necessary.

I also need to make up my mind on a colour scheme. The room will have a wooden floor when we've finished, in a lightish oak. It faces east, so is quite dark in the afternoons when I'm teaching there. There are four wall light points in the room, and I will probably get on or two uplighters as well. The ceiling is white.

Any suggestions, please? What works for you?

I'll keep thinking of things andante, but to start with, if you are facing east, light coloured walls are likely to be best, pale blues/greens, that sort of thing, I'd say.

For storage, I think you could do a lot worse than have a look at what IKEA have to offer, there's plenty of scope there.

I would suggest a pale yellow colour scheme - nice and light, and yellow is cheerful and uplifting. Green always puts me in mind of hospitals and blue can make a room feel rather cold.

Storage - you could get something like the IKEA storage units that have look like lots of boxes stacked up - plenty of separate compartments to organise your teaching materials, and you can put boxes or baskets in some compartments to contain bits and pieces.

When I did my piano room, I decided on yellow & orange colours and haven't regretted it. I've got a soft shade of yellow on the walls, an orange & yellow patterned sofa, cream curtains and lots of pale wood furniture. The result is a calm, relaxing mix. And I have some lovely pictures, all with 'antiquey' gold frames.

Lots of lovely ideas already, thanks!

I'd considered yellow (lots of rooms in my house are yellowy shades ), but I wear pink quite a lot. I wouldn't want to clash with the furnishings! Perhaps I need to change my wardrobe to match.

We've been looking at the Ikea catalogue and website, and there seem to be lots of bookcases etc that would do the job without costing the earth. I'm not sure how much room I'm going to have left for pictures!

When I was growing up my piano teacher was czech and she had a great "european" style, so my idea of the perfect music room kind of looks like a Joan Miro painting. Black and white with big bold splashes of colour and giant Fauvist and Cubist style music posters about the room.

I know that probably doesn't help, haha, just sharing! Or who knows...maybe you'll be inspired to try something a bit out there!

A black and white base allows for total freedom in colour choices so your pink tops would be fine

Black and white theme? You'd never find the piano!

Ah, but my piano is mahogany. Which somehow doesn't quite go with a black and white theme.

I took a break over half-term to clear and re-decorate my teaching room: it's a fair size and faces north, so can be a bit dark. I had thought a pale pale yellow would bring a bit of sunlight into the room, particularly welcome in winter - but having done three walls thus, it looked so peculiar we painted over it - I still can't see why it didn't work, a bit of mystery. Jenny - yours sounds really good.

It's now white (not quite dead-white) with a very pale olive on one short wall - I don't think this looks at all hospital-ish, although some greens can. I have an old fashioned fireplace which I don't much like and which I would like to replace - or possibly paint - on one long wall. I still need to sort out some of the furniture but the whole is a big improvement already.

I'm lucky enough to have two rooms mostly at my disposal for music now. The main room is beautifully bright with lots of large windows , a high ceiling and wooden floor.- Great acoustics! It houses the piano and 'cello. I also have an antique filing cabinet thingy along one wall which is perfect for housing sheet music. It's long and low and solid, so I can put my cd player and record player - (Yes-I have vinyl !) - on top. More sheet music, cds ,more vinyl, reference books and materials are housed in a small study across the hall. I know[/b] how fortunate I am.

You could go a little crazy and decorate it in the style of the period of your favourite music. Once. long ago, I decorated a room to look like an ornate Italian harpsichord with wall paintings and loads of gilt and dark red!

Trust you!

I must confess that I never got around to redecorating my music room, and it's still the same colour that the previous owners of the house had painted it. It used to be a downstairs bedroom. The colour? Dare I confess? Pink!

Fun maybe. I couldn't actually live in it though!

Please don't forget a decent light focussed over the music if you haven't already got one. I hate having my lesson under useless yellowish general lighting in the dark winter evenings. Think I will donate a piano lamp to the music school!

Great idea. My favourite style of art and of music coincide: French impressionist. Everything will have to be very blurry and indistinct.

That could save a lot of time on dusting! You could take your colours from a favourite painting perhaps and tie in the woodwork with the colour of your piano. Then a few sunflowers and you'd be sorted.

Yes, you're right - that's so important. Even though my piano is opposite a big window, I still use two lamps - one small one on top of the piano and one floor lamp at the side, both directed onto the music.

Having finished nagging me to replace the piano, the teacher complained about the lighting, so I bought one of those standard lamps with a little lamp sticking out of the side. (Grandmother, granddaughter lamp? I think that's the name for it) The little one can be angled to point at the music, so no more complaints.

Yes, decent lighting is one of my priorities. It was one of the issues in the room I currently use, as there isn't a power point near the piano.

My old favourite teachers room had music all over the walls - I dont know (was too young) whether it was musical wall paper or old music jsut glued on everywhere - sounds awful, but I loved it. And Im sure its where I learnt to read music in my head - spending hours there waiting for my countless brithers and sisters to finish their lessons.

My daughter's piano teacher used to have a couple of those funny musical tea towels hanging in the music room - you know, the ones with things like "pp: the neighbours are at the door; ff: to h ell with the neighbours!". My daughter (aged 9 or 10) thought they were wonderful!

'musical wall paper '......love it.. How fantastic Smacks of those moving, waving photographs of lost loved ones in Harry Potter. I'd love those too. (Sorry -Off topic-ish Couldn't resist

Yes- I lack a good directional light over the piano keyboard. That's a very good suggestion.

If you're free to do as you wish with the walls, you might like to consider mounting and framing photos/posters/programmes of musicians and concerts. Some pics can be downloaded from the web. They can help to stimulate conversation around performers and performances etc. which might in turn lead to someone at some point in time actually seeking out and listening to those works and musicians. (Recorded or live). It all helps with musical exploration. (IMHO) If you can't or don't want to attach anything to the walls, you could put pics in photo frames.

One of my teachers used to have pages of medieval manuscript framed and hung onthe walls, which can help with discussions around notation/history/development and so on.

(I have a few things I keep meaning to get framed up and haven't yet got around to).

I have a framed print of pseudo-orchestral score in the shape of Cologne Cathedral which a fellow-chorister gave me - it's quite large - about four feet tall . And I have a cork board with pictures of my students.

I think having music all over the walls sounds rather effective.

Lighting - I have a sort-of desk light on top of the piano - but like others I find it's sometimes not enough, and particularly on dark winter afternoons I sometimes need the main light on too.

Make it really light and airy!

Like heaven

My bedroom is the attic, and although my parents wouldn't agree to floorboards, they did let me have this special paint called Dulux Light and Space

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http://www.dulux.co.uk/products/info/light...e_rich_matt.jsp
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It's amazing stuff! Before my room was painted a light-ish yellow. But then I got the blue one of the light and space (first frost, I think...) and the sunlight comes in through a sky-light, and the paint has completely opened the room up and made it look all airy and fresh.

Don't have any rugs or carpets or anything, and it'll be one of those echoey rooms which sounds amazing to play in. I like playing in my bathroom once in a while because it has hardly furnishings and sounds lovely.

Just some ideas. I love the other ideas which people have suggested though.

Thanks for all your help and suggestions. I'm going for gold. Crown's Gold Leaf period paint, to be precise. The shelving will all be light coloured wood, and I'll go for a light coloured floor, so I think the effect won't be too dark.

Update - my new room is almost ready. I'm only teaching one day a week over the holidays, so I've taught my last lesson in my old room. I am packing everything into crates ready for the big move. The walls and floor are done - only one wall in gold in the end, with the other three in a lighter gilt. The floor is oak effect rather than real wood for durability. The curtains have arrived; the new bookshelves arrive on Friday and my existing desk and cupboards and the piano are about to be moved.

It's the end of an era - I've been teaching in my current room for nearly ten years now.

Congratulations! That sounds lovely. I'm very jealous! I often daydream about having my own room just for teaching in. I hope you're very happy there for the next ten years!

One of my best-ever buys, from a local furniture auction, was a floor-standing anglepoise-type lamp. It has a heavy base with 4 castors, and I have it pointing over my left shoulder at the piano, with an energy-saving bulb. I think it was listed as a studio light. Something similar may well be available new if you can find the right type of supplier.

Andante_in_C your room sounds very glamorous with its gold and gilt! Enjoy.

I have something very similar. Good lighting is essential, so I have a small light on top of the piano (directed onto the music) and the big floor-standing one to the side of the piano. I often have to use the main ceiling light as well, even though my room has a fairly big window opposite the piano.

congratulations andante_in_c! We redecorated our two music rooms over the summer holidays.... I've gone for a colonial look... park English country cottage. part Indian decor.... have a screen made from sari material, and got a few knick knacks from Camden Market Indian stalls... It's exciting.

I'm assuming, you, like me are looking forward to getting settled into teaching in your new room.. (I'm looking forward to seeing my students faces when they see everything changed around)

Enjoy your room... Hope you have many happy years in there!

Thank you very much! It should be up-and-running on Tuesday for my last day of holiday lessons. I'm wondering if I can get a ribbon to fix across the door so I can get my first pupil on Tuesday to declare it open.

I like the idea of a ribbon. Will you post a photograph of your finished room for us to admire, please?

Sounds wonderful, Andante! I hope you have many happy hours teaching there