A Glorious Shed

My shed studio is finally DONE!! Oh god I've waiting so long for this, we purchased the shed back in 2014 with the intent that it would one day be an outside workspace/print workshop, somewhere to do messing painty stuff without the fear of spilling (and wrecking our nice floorboards or carpet). Off course life has a way of taking over and other more pressing project came along meaning it got used as most sheds do as a dumping ground for tools and equipment needed to work on the house, cars and garage.

Rich bless him has been promising to get it done as soon as the garage/workshop was finished (hint, its still not 100% finished either!). Anyway just before Easter we noticed the roof was starting to leak in the shed and if we left it it would eventually rot out the wood in the floor as well. So in between the snow and rain Rich stripped the old felt off and replaced a sections of the boards, we spend a week clearing all the tools, paint and general crap out which left us with and empty shell.

Rich being the total Wombel that he is saved all the off cuts of celotex insulation that was used when they built the garage/workshop last year. He also saved every pallet that the bricks, roof tiles and anything else was delivered on (in fact once our builders knew we wanted them they bough along extras from other jobs because they normally have to pay to have them taken away so it saved them cash to give them to us). All of this stuff would have been scrapped and the insulation would have ended up in landfill, also as we had already paid for it anyway we morally objected to chucking it if it could be useful!

Rich started by lining the shed with a plastic membrane then cutting the celotex to fit into the panels.

He then used the broken up and dried pallet wood to board over the top of the insulation. This was a long and super fiddly job! Also guess where we had to dry the pallet wood...yep in his exspensive new studio at the back of the workshop, so no clients allowed to visit while this was all stacked up in there for a few weeks!

Rich being the clever bugger that he is managed to incoporate some bits we've had knocking around for years, he found a place for the 1950s stain glass window I got at a carboot sales years ago for a few quid. I love coming home from work to find he's done stuff like this!

In face our next door neighbour noticed him fitting this and came and donated another bit of stain glass he rescued from a house which was being demolished 15 years ago. He never found a use for it but said I could have it as long as I put it in the window looking over his garden so then he'd get to see it eveyday!

We ran out of pallet wood for lining the ceiling and I had to buy some thin tongue and groove cladding, luckily as its not a massive space it didn't cost too much. The whole project was pretty much done by spending as little as possible. We reused stuff we already had, the apple crate below was one of three I bought about 9 years go, we just painting the inside to make it look cleaner against the rough pallet wood. The big sign below came from my Dads shed which we cleared out over Christmas as my Mum was moving house. It was in his shed...I think he would approve!

I decided to paint the ceiling, long workbench and window frames white to help break up the 'woody' theme I had going on. Rich wired it up for power, heating and internet so it is a super lux shed indeed! Then it was a case of starting to move all my crap in!

All the furniture including my 1950s drawing board, oak achitects chair and card filing cabinet where all stuff we already owned so the fixtures and fittings cost us nothing. All the shelves including the brackets are made by Rich from old scaffolding planks left by our builders.

At the moment Im still in shock that its finally done, I keep going in there and just standing looking at it and the amazing view! Rich worked like an absolute trooper, he always manages to surprise me with how talented and creative he is. He assures me no matter how many of our friends ask that he would only put this much time and afford into something for me! What can I say, hes never going to be the diamond ring guy...hes so much better than that...he's the shed guy and I wouldn't have him any other way!

Thank you baby, love you xxx