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.........