My new workshop

I finally have a space to work in that isn't also the dining room or some other room of the house used for other purposes and isn't using part of Wookie's workspace which means dodging latex, plaster dust and paint.

At the top of our road is some workshops which have a mix of uses though originally I think they were all engineering of some sort. Now however they are a mix of engineering, storage for local shops and Mandala Studios which I have mentioned here before as I work with them at times.  Next door to the Mandala unit is one that I now have which was until recently someone dealing in car parts.

We have spent the last few days cleaning it as the down side of an ex-engineering unit is the grime and oil that impregnates the place. The upside is the size and ceiling height. Sugar soap is a wonderful thing however!

Here is my Friend Nikki standing against one of the walls to show the height. You can spot where we ran out of ladder height and so couldn't finish cleaning the wall at the top.

This is looking into the back corner after we cleaned and laid out a new carpet, the wooden wall is all that divides us from Mandala's grotto which is the room they use for storage and making big projects.. There was some carpet in places but it was old and oil stained so we got rid of that. It took a couple of days of brushing, scraping and cleaning to get all the dust and old underlay up and the walls clean enough to put the carpet down. There are all sorts of blocked up openings in the wall which make me want to research the history of the building.

This is looking the other way. You can see the double doors into the unit on the  left and the office in the right. There is a big skylight at this end of the room which is the bright white bit at the top, shame it isn't in the middle so it can be over the cutting table but you can't have everything. I suspect originally there were big windows along the top of the long wall  (you can see one at the top left of the second photo) but if so they have been blocked up for a good while.

The main bit of the room is about 5m by 6m with another 3 by 5m made up of the office and area by the doors. Plus because the room is so high if we get some proper industrial shelving we can store a huge amount of stuff vertically.

No problem running a industrial sewing machine either as the floor is designed to take much heavier machinery that that.

Friday we plan to stick the carpet down and start moving in sewing machines, tables, fabric, haberdashery etc from the various places they are currently stashed which is going to take several days I suspect. I have several friends keen to come and join me and spend occasional days sewing which there should be plenty of room for and it is always better to work with company.

Suppose this means I have no excuse not to get round to all those things I keep meaning to make now !

By the way this is what it looked like before the clean or rather halfway through.

Yes we really needed the masks the underlay of some of the carpet was that 'lovely' yellow stuff which is nasty to breath in.