Time to start the drum reno project

Here I am with my first bass drum and some guy who thought he was my father.
As I mentioned in the last post, I'm going to start working on some cool old drums. We're going to bring them up to speed and make 1 kit where there used to be 2. First we'll start with a Gretsch 20 x 14 round badge bass drum. This drum sounds great but, as Dr. Phil would say, (why am I quoting Dr. Phil?) it has "issues".
Problem number one: the original spurs are closer to the batter head.This causes some rough seas while playing. They need to be moved toward the resonant (front) head and tom mount. Since this drum has been recovered and has a Rogers "Big R" tom mount (obviously installed incorrectly), keeping it original is not an issue. Ergo, I'm having Barry and the boy's at Drummers World in NYC put on a pair of Pearl spurs - I don't like the old Gretsch spurs anyway - to make her nice and sturdy.
Now, the recovering job is problems #2 and #3.
Number 2: the covering (veneer, I think) is bubbling.
Number 3: between Gretsch drums being ever so slightly larger (I need to confirm this) than other drums, and the veneer going right up to the bearing edge,changing heads is about as much fun as the 1991 Mets (easy, I'm a die hard Met fan). So I'll be getting Barry's feedback on solving problems 2 & 3 and getting back to you.
In the mean time, anybody feel like chiming (sorry, it's past my bedtime) in, feel free.