If your voice can be heard across the room, however, it means you didn’t obey the signs at each doorway that read in big red letters, “Please Do Not Enter.” And everyone - the visitors, the volunteers, the staff, the children and their families - at the Ronald McDonald House of Detroit reads the sign. It’s how an empty room is filled with promise.

“They’ll ask, ‘Hey, what’s that going to be?’” said Jennifer Litomisky, executive director of the Ronald McDonald House of Detroit. “Because at first it was filled with toys, nursery things, then it was nothing, torn up; then all of a sudden it was no carpet just cement and now this beautiful wooden floor.”

The hardwood floor, reminiscent of The Palace of Auburn Hills, was installed earlier this week, laying the foundation for much more than a room. The Detroit Pistons will unveil their 17th Live, Learn and Play Center there in December, providing state-of-the-art educational and recreational resources for children currently being treated at Children’s Hospital of Michigan, which is right next-door.

“First of all, it’s going to bring to the children that stay at the house - the actual patient and sometimes the siblings that come to the house - an opportunity to have a playroom where they can read and learn and have interactive games,” Litomisky said. “We don’t have that currently at the house.”

The House does have toys like Playstation 2, but they’re in the basement, far from the former nursery and play area for younger kids. “This will give the families an opportunity to be in the dining room and let the kids be right next to them playing and having fun,” she said. “It’s a huge step for us.”

In the coming weeks, the shelves will be furnished with books, a Nintendo Wii system, a couple of laptop computers and other resources that blend education with entertainment. Because many of the families at Ronald McDonald House have a child facing long-term treatment at the hospital and may stay at the House for several weeks and even months, nothing is likely to stay on the shelf for long.

“If they do have homework, what a nice place for mom or dad or grandma or whoever to sit with a child and do it in there, where the atmosphere is already very educational and fun, which I think is nice tie-in,” Litomisky said.

Until then, the Pistons logo on the “Under Construction” signs serves as a reminder to everyone at the House of the good things to come, even those who might be there just a few hours, like prospective guests and volunteers from youth organizations like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, who cook at the House.

“When people look at that sign and I tell them on tours that we’re going to have a Read to Achieve room, the Pistons are going to be here cooking and there’s going to a party with the Pistons, it’s generated a ton of excitement,” she said.

Litomisky, who has been with the Ronald McDonald House of Detroit for six years, is most eager for the guests who have stayed there the longest (and likely endured the most weighty of medical circumstances) to see this room come to fruition. “The way this is going on is really great,” she said, “because people are watching this transform and some of our families have been here from the time it’s been dismantled to now and will probably be here when it’s completed.”

The Live, Learn and Play construction is the latest in a series of projects at the Ronald McDonald House, including a newly paved driveway and entrance. After several days of jackhammer noise, the floor installation was serene by comparison. “You think, ‘Gosh, when’s it going to stop,’” Litomisky said. “And then you think, ‘Wait ‘til it’s done. Wait ‘til it’s done.’”

Litomisky doesn’t have to think hard to envision it. A football field-length away, in the lobby of Children’s Hospital, is the Pistons Reading Room that was completed in April 2006.

We go there so I can see the finished product. When we arrive, two children are lighting up both touch-screen monitors with interactive games. The kids seem happy and healthy, the adult companions beside them apparently relieved to sit on a bench, occasionally leaning forward to help choose the right color or answer.

There are no chairs for children, but at this moment, no signs of worry about whatever brought them to the hospital, either. And the kids simply kneel in front of the monitors on the hardwood floor.