New Stained Glass Studio

So happy and excited to have finally finished renovating the outbuilding which is now my brand spanking new studio (you can read about my old one here.)

It was quite a task... damp, dirty, full of junk, badly lit, horrible windows, nasty ripped and stained lino, massive useless (too deep) shelves at one end, massive useless sink unit at the other end.

So sleeves were rolled up and work commenced. The shelves and sink unit were removed and I had a new purpose-built workbench made. Then the rest was up to me: filling, drilling, deglazing, reglazing, priming, painting, cleaning, sanding, more painting, trips to Ikea, furniture building, tiling, grouting... you get the idea. And then moving in.

So lovely to have proper drawers and shelves and storage. So good to have a workbench that is BIG ENOUGH. So nice to have light, and room to move around.

Some things I did that worked out really well:

Painting the lino. I didn't think it would work either, but I got down on my hands and knees and sanded it thoroughly all over (fun times). Then degreased it with sugar soap. Then repaired the rips using flexible caulk. And then painted it with floor paint. It seems to have withstood the various items of furniture I have dragged around on it so far!

Glass racks - they are actually Ikea shelving units, from the Trofast range. The top one is this one, turned on its side.

Windows - removed all the light-stealing Flemish glass from the 5 window panels and 6 door panels and replaced with normal clear glass. Ba Da Bing - DAYLIGHT!

Pegboard - Ok, super trendy I know, but it is actually for workshops and tool storage, so I'm going with it. I still haven't finished putting everything up on it yet, because it will take a while to work out what I need on that bench and what would be better over by the smaller bench.

New smaller sink - big enough for washing hands and brushes, not so big it takes up half the workshop (I have a bigger butler's sink in the old workshop that I'll still use if I need more sink space).

Bookshelves - the cheapest shelving that Ikea does, but it looks great, and when properly fixed to the wall is as strong as you like.

So you'd probably like to see the before pictures.  Brace yourselves.  And this isn't even as bad as it was because I took these once I'd removed most of the junk...

Makes me feel a bit exhausted just looking at these now - the state of that lino! You would never know it was like that under the shiny grey paint.

Looking forward to starting on my next piece of work in there, and I'll be taking part in Bridport Open Studios in August this year, so it will be a nice opportunity to show it off.