Thursday 20 March 2014

Hello and Welcome.......


Hello and welcome to my Art and Studio Blog, At last I have found some time to sort through all the pictures taken from last year before during and after the ''Studio Build ''. as this blog will be centered around the studio work I thought I would start from the very begining,

We all dream of a place to escape to, to do our own thing wether for work or just play, personally that dream was a  Garden  Studio  some where to paint and craft away from the house, Up untill now i have been using the smallest bedroom of the house which was getting to bursting point.....

It took me some time to actually choose the studio, I looked for some months threw around some ideas and found Dunster House , on seeing their website and the massive range they have and as I was only 12 miles away from their Bedford depot....... The best thing was to go and have a look, Oh my word the choice was endless, single thickness double or even triple thickness and thermo for added protection,they were extrermemly helpful, I had outlined what i intened to use it for etc , so armed with brouchers measuring tape and pad and pen ...some time later when everything was agreed, I went home and started to  measure  and plan out the area I could use,to the best of every angle , me being me actually drew pics of what it would be like once in place and ........ eventually I went for the corner Palmer   size wise well the biggest I could get in our medium size garden without over powering it and that it would be an asset rather than an eye sore....

some time later ... June  2013 the fun began.....The cabin was ordered and was due for delivery 26th July.the weather up until April had been pretty appauling and I thought I would be safer in july ....Espcially by then all the craft retail shows would be finished for the summer and i would have more time .......Famous last words.....

What I hadn't thought of was the amount of work there was involved with this project ....even before the actual build..clearing the old summer house 26 years old and still standing...but rotten in more than a few areas,removal of two trees, 2 ton of sand 60 paving slabs, 2 ton of crazy paving 'broken slabs',6 large tins of fence care and 34 fence panels painted,an avairy rebuild and painted later we pick up with the photo's


 The area all completed with 3 days to go before the Delivery July 2013,


 Delivery Day ........Arghhhhh all this wood and it was due to pour with rain, i'm not kidding when i say that there was over 1600 pieces to this  Studio  Build including screws nails and other extras  it was like having a giant jigsaw on the drive and there were two of us going to do this Mabott and Me I don't think either of us knew then what we were up against . weather due to rain big style hasn't for weeks and when it does .........What was I thinking ...Mike was away at the Grand Prix from the Thur's through to Monday evening late ....away from the madness that was about to begin..... Good move Darling !!!!......


 Day 1 . we are off ...once we have sifted through all the componts for the outer ,inner, and thermo layer, roof ,flooring doors, windows etc, read the instructions reread them and again to be sure before each move to be honest Mabott and I got on at a great speed once all the initial hurdles were sorted things were moving fairly quickly,

 Moving on...what you don't realize by these pictures is that we had the worst storm in years by 7pm the heavens opened and in the end we put the Caravan Awning right over the sight which kept the whole thing dry...amazingly by the next morning as you can see all dry and work continued....
Oh sorry there had to be one photo of me in action i was just fixing the door frame ..
This is the amazing spider roof purlins on specially designed steel brackets, the poles are the support while doing the roof and were removed when the roof was all done bar the felting....
and a distance shot to show how it all slotted together, by this stage all outer walls, inner walls window frames, insulation flooring were done now to finish the roof....
And Mabott Daniel son ''king of the roof''  Thank you once again Dan I would have never done this project without your help...
Then the felting, also the windows and Doors are in ...Looking good.....Charlie our Baraband Parakeet loves his new rebuild and makes me laugh as he looks in on me inside the studio and dances Michael Jacksons moon walk backwards down the branch....  I will try and get that on video for you to see...
Ok so now we are basically done... 3 days in and cooking on gazzz....Guttering up all around to the water but.The fixtures, fittings trimmings to be completed  and as units and storage from ikea won't be delivered until the end of July, so I now had plenty of time to finish inside and paint ,
Even with all the trimmings done I had loads of wood over Dunster House didn't scrimp with the extras, there had to be some for each section very generous so all areas were coved if you cut a bit wrong....Out side painted with Dulux outdoor Summer breeze a kind of soft creamy colour and against the green of all the fences and trellis it really set the 'Studio' off..... Inside the walls are white but I wanted to keep that wonder full wood ceiling so I've painstakinly rubbed wax oil over the entire ceily took me almost a week to sand and wax but well worth the time and effort.
I was still amazed about the amount of wood I had leftThere was even enough to make a potting bench for around the back where I have a small green house

As you can see below The potting bench made from all the extras and left overs...In fact I've made another since for a friend and still have pieces over amazing ......

 And now for the inside .. unfortunately I am unable to show you any of the inner build as the pictures were mistakenly wiped off the camera ...I thought I had saved them all on my PC but I hadn't OOPs....so what I can show you is what it looks like now

The art area

The Craft area
The Chill out area

And the entrance.

Again thank you Mabott for all you help, before during and after the build 6 months on and although the winter has been mild the winds have been wild and it's still there....no seriously it has settled and apart from re jigging the door everything is Brilliant ,thanks also goes to my friends that have helped during the move from the old spare room to the Studio, I'm already in settled and painting which is a good sign,

during the next few months I shall be blogging here as and when basis  but first i would like to re blog some of the art trails already done on my other blog tech-design-studio.blogspot.com which will remain for my designs for making cards and  that are available to buy  and I still haven't shown the Art trail from Milan and Venice last year so plenty to share with you. 

thank you for dropping by see you soon.....


Jayne x