When I was working on my 'impossible' challenge
here and
here, I mentioned that the dear old geezer was doing something else. There was complete method in my madness because he was outside in the cold doing up the 'lean to', while I was inside, and now I have this -
The 'lean to' was leaning to so much that we nearly knocked it down. I think we just decided to give it a go, so he got out there and replaced the window sill and some of the glass that had broken and as soon as my challenge was finished I got out there and caulked and painted everything.
I am now going to show you the before - I hope you don't fall off your seat, as it's bad folks, VERY bad. I apologise if this attacks your delicate sensibilities !!
The corner post had rotted away, so needed to be replaced, and then the back panel put back on. Luckily we really get on with our neighbours, that's their playhouse that you can see at the end, and when it's warmer I will paint their side of the lean to, to !
As you can see, it just became a dumping ground - a sink, a fridge for the old geezer's beer, a filling cabinet (filled with paint), a telescope - used once, and lots of rubbish.
The view into the kitchen now looks a lot better.
We haven't bought any paint at all, just used stuff that we already had. We bought a piece of windowsill £35 and some glass £50 and lots and lots of caulk £12 (I love caulking - it's messy but so fun, and effective for keeping out draughts and spiders !). And I bought some metal brackets at 50p each and just put some tongue and groove boards across them, which were left over from our kitchen.
In time everything will find a proper home, and I will make spaces for all the old geezer's tools (he enjoys leaving them all over the place to make finding them easier - lol).
At the end here, there are the two butchers blocks that we used to have in the kitchen, and next to that is an amazing 6ft by 3ft workbench that Pandy's husband has just given me. It's fantastic - I haven't had a bench this large to work on, since I left college in 1985 !
That's not a 'I love Pandy's husband' mug - it's a 'I love my dog' mug - of course !!!
I've put loads of stuff underneath, that needs painting. It was all over the house, so now the house is a bit tidier too.
The other end of the lean to has the cupboard which houses the washing machine and dryer, and the little window is actually the boiler and coat cupboard.
There's not a great deal of room, but as you can see I've already started on a bit of furniture and in the warmer months I can do larger pieces outside. (No, you definately can't see a bag of mini chocolate eggs next to my mug of tea).
The floor is lino so there is no point in changing that but at some point we will replace the plastic roof as it is a bit dirty and we've cleaned it as best as we can (that's the royal 'we' as the old geezer did it really).
So just another quick look, the before -
and the after -
It's so fantastic just to have a place to leave stuff out - I can just leave it and not have to move it to make way for something else.
We have also decided to turn my little office upstairs into a very small guest room. We have a great Ikea day bed in the loft, and there will still be space for a little desk, so I can keep paperwork in there.
So, what do you think - I haven't made a pretty craft room, but I have a great space for painting, and hopefully I might be able to refurbish a few pieces and sell them. And we only spent about £100 to do all of this (it would have been less, had the poor old geezer not broken THREE pieces of glass - but don't tell him I told you ).
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