Red door!

I couldn't wait till tomorrow to show you the red door:-) Flame red!! I've only painted one coat so far and will give it another coat tomorrow. I was going to paint the door surround red too but I think it may be better fading into the background a little. That means I'll have to get some more white gloss but I'll need it anyway to paint the windows and door on the inside.

Sigh! isn't it striking?! A little bit oranger than I thought but the reflective light is very bright and the paint is still wet. All I need now are some red planters attached to the windowsills;-)) Okay, maybe overkill! I do need to sort out the last bit of the outside though - the fascia. Problem is no-one delivers it and it's way to long to fit in a normal car. Still working on that one.....

It is a little bit darker red in real life, but not much! After painting, I turned round and saw my lovely bright red Dalias. The sun keeps bleaching out the depth of their colour as there are very subtle tonal variations going on.

I've been trying to capture those red tones today in my dyeing experimentation. With red being a primary colour, you can't mix it and have to use the bought tub of dye. Only problem is, that this red seems more vermillion and has an obviously orangey base. Adding magenta to take away the orange cast moves it very quickly into cranberry/plum tones. I'm wanting to run the strong red into deep crimsons but the red base just isn't going there. I know I have all the colours in the range of acid dyes but I really need a crimson red base.

Maybe its because I've painted the door:-) but these just don't seem very 'red' to me. We have orangey-reds, blue-reds, plum-reds, purpley-reds, browney-reds but not crimson red. Oh, they are all lovely in their own right and I'll probably use a lot of these soon but it's not what I'm looking for right now. I'll try again tomorrow or else look for another supplier of acid dyes........

Making progress...

Last week I left you with pictures of the shed before much had happened to it. As promised, we have some progress pictures. We did actually get 4 very sunny days - in fact we are still having the end of an indian summer now, although maybe not as warm as over last weekend. Boy, was that sun hot! and has been the major factor in me not being around to post. I worked so hard to get the outside sealed before the weather broke, that I exhausted myself and managed to give myself sunstroke - typical! So instead of a couple of days work, it was more sporadic when-I-can over the last 5 or 6 days. And, of course, I didn't want to post until I actually had some progress to show you:-))

But here we are! The outside walls were wire brushed to get rid of all the moss and muck and then painted a nice, clean bright white. We did find some traces of the shed being painted once before but it must have been a long time ago. The windows have already been primed with grey undercoat and awaiting some gloss.

The main pain in the butt has been this door. It had been sitting out so long that the paint was flaking away and the door was wet through. Easy, I thought, it will all peel off quickly. Nope. Of course not. Make life easy?! We have slogged over this door for days! Inside and out, it has been very stubborn. Wouldn't sand off easily so we ended up having to use knives to scrape it off. I know, not the best method and tends to gouge the wood when you hit a wet patch, never mind knacker your hands with cuts and scrapes. Maybe it is best not to dwell on how I felt 4 days later when someone suggested using a heat gun - DUH!! I have one, I've used it for jobs just like these, so why did it not occur to me now? And save me all the cut fingers, sunstroke and sheer effort I've poured into this door?!!! Sometimes I wonder where I left my brain - I think it went on vacation last week when the sun arrived:-))

Anyway, the door does have some redeeming features;-) Its had an old ornate handle at some point with this lovely plate. Its a shame I don't have the actual handle now but I do have the latches and bolts from the other side though and they may come up a treat with a bit of tlc.

So, we have cleaned and painted the outside walls, painted the windows white, scraped and sanded the door, and then primed all the wood with grey undercoat. You know, I was wanting a nice bright colour for the door like emerald green or pillar box red but I quite like the grey too. A little more subtle and understated. But don't worry, I'll get over that soon as I've already bought the red gloss paint and anyway, I have to make a bit of a statement and stamp some personality on it as it is going to be a dyeing workshop working with colour:-)

Today though is all about experiments for dyeing and maybe even catching up on some knitting. And my buttons have arrived for my green veyla mitts so I may even get them officially finished! Of course, this is all procrastination as I know I still have the inside of the shed to do! But I think a few days knitting will recharge the batteries a little and give the shed a further chance to dry out before more wire brushing and painting. Fingers crossed! - I may have to sneek out and paint the door red though:-))

Fixing up the shed

When we moved here, one of the main pluses for me was the fact there was a decent sized shed at the top of the garden which was shouting 'workshop!!' A big minus was the fact that it had no door, was really damp inside and was full of junk left from the previous owners. The big question was could I get it dry and keep it dry enough to put yarns or fabrics in without ruining them? This is still the big question I want the answer to but I just won't know till all the work is done.

The first thing we did was to seal in the roof as it's asbestos. Safe enough when sealed but I'd rather not take any chances:-) so its been sealed with waterproof ply. The most major thing was to get the shed weather tight as soon as possible. Summer should be a good time for drying out and DIY but we haven't had the driest summer here in the UK so its been a bit challenging;-)

As you can see, there is no door and this window wasn't held in by much. When it was time to take this out, one little push and it parted company sooner than was expected. I've been trying to keep the rain out from the missing panes with polythene which worked somewhat but mostly dribbled down the wall and soaked the floor on a bad rain day - sigh. But now they are gone and new windows are in place. Progress pics tomorrow:-)

Now the inside. To the left of the door, under the window, there were some mouldy old woodwormed kitchen units - I took great pleasure in ripping them out! And when we cleared a lot of junk away we found this little enclosure for compost on the right. I never even knew it was there. No wonder the shed smelled so - earthy! But its now nurturing my plants in the garden although it took a lot of trips to empty it completely. Then we had to knock down the wall with a sledgehammer but I still have to get rid of all the stones - added to the ever mounting pile of rubbish needing to go to the dump.

On the right side, There is mostly rubble bags under the window - outside now - and the chimney sweep brushes have found a new home as I don't intend to use them when the chimney sweep man has a hoover thing to do it a lot more efficiently - with no mess! But I don't use the open fire much - too messy.

The shelving unit is mine and is storing my knitting machines and tables. The tables have suffered a bit with damp but are still useable. Very annoying but I just didn't have room inside for everything and I didn't think the shed got as damp as it obviously does.

On a parting note, see the little wet patch? Yes? Well, that was a present left by my cat who, we've found out, has been using the shed as her inside toilet!!!!! Yes, a lot dryer than outside but I hope she can tell the difference between manky old shed and nice, clean new workshop. I don't want it being christened, thank you very much!

Tomorrow, I'll take some pics of where we are now - the windows, ceiling and door. It still needs a lot of cosmetic work visually but once I can get the walls dry I can get the paint out and make it look more like a workable space - fingers crossed. But its taking a long time.........