Perfect timing.........

It's rare that we hit anything with perfect timing but for once we seem to have managed it.  

After two weeks of bitterly cold, but mercifully, dry weather, during which our front garden was dug up then block paved and finally finished yesterday, this morning we woke to relentless, steady rain.

Had it rained while the work was ongoing our thick, clay soil would have turned to claggy mud and made the whole process a sticky nightmare.

However, now that it's complete, the rain, for once, is our friend, washing the sand down between the bricks, settling the dust and revealing our lovely new drive in all its glistening, gleaming glory.

It's still a novelty to look out of any of the front windows and see an expanse of pristine blockwork instead of a very scrappy, rutted lawn.

So.

Now that the front is finished, plans are afoot to transform the workroom, from a bland, boring, utilitarian space, into my dream studio.  Within the inevitable constraints (size and shape of room, existing storage units etc, I'm reasonably confident that it's possible to make a huge difference for a relatively small financial outlay and a proportionately larger amount of work, most of which we can do ourselves. 

In the almost 10 years we've lived here, every other room in the house has been redecorated and flooring and furniture replaced or revamped.  Only the workroom looks exactly the same as it did when we first moved in.  Given that I spend most of every day in it, I think it's long overdue a makeover, disruption or not!

Firstly, I'll need to completely rationalise all the cupboards and get rid of EVERYTHING I no longer want or need.  That's what I thought I'd been doing for the past however long but I strongly suspect that all the cupboards contain a Narnia-like portal to another dimension. 

The World of Stuff.

As quick as I get things out, other things from the The World of Stuff immediately infiltrate and fill the empty spaces.

However I have to be brutal and just get on with it.  For example I have several hundred, (possibly over a thousand) doll's house and miniature magazines dating back 25 years.  I can't face selling them individually on Ebay or our website, so I'm going to offer them as one lot for pick up only at a bargain price.

Ditto books, which admittedly, as they're much higher value, have been selling steadily on Amazon and the website for some time.  However the teetering pile of books in the workroom is testament to the fact that I still have some way to go.


In the meantime, I plan to strip the orangey-looking varnish from all the cupboards doors, which are solid oak, then lime them with liming wax.  I've already done a test patch on the inside of one of the doors and the oak comes up beautifully pale and light, with a lovely, distinctive grain. 

Then there are a few storage units which are most definitely NOT things of beauty, and even the fact that they're useful does nothing to redeem them.  They have to go.  Either freecycled or consigned to the garden sheds.

Once the clearout is complete, and only those things which I actually need or want are left, we can then temporarily relocate the cupboards and shelving units into the sitting room so that the workroom can be re-painted and re-carpetted.

Once that's done, new curtains hung, revamped cupboards and shelving reinstated and Hey Presto.... a lovely, fresh, new, inspirational space in which to work.

Well that's the plan.  And we all know what can happen to best laid plans......