Craft studio makeover...part 1...from ugly duckling....

We bought this used site office last year to convert in to a studio/office/spare room, for up here on the farm.  Currently it is UGLY !!!....ugly...ugly...ugly...

The inside was even worse, it had that horrible woodgrain panelling on the inside walls, which had been haphazardly painted over, there was a big hole where the air conditioner had been, and while transporting it up here on the tilt tray, part of the inside ceiling caved in....oops...
So, on the weekend we started with the inside renovation. It has now been reinforced, some of the timber studs replaced and braced, and  re-lined with fibre cement sheeting, and is now ready for the cornice, skirting and arcitraves, then painting. We didn't go with gyprock walls, as the whole building is on skids, and if we want to relocate it, we can do so without risk of cracking the gyprock joins. It was a struggle with just the 2 of us putting up the ceiling sheets, but Damian rigged up a couple of support poles to hold the sheets at either end, which made life a lot easier. Trying to slot each sheet in to the previous sheets joining strip was the hardest part of the whole exercise.

Once it is all painted, I will get in some nice wooden floorboard look vinyl to finish it off, and dress the window with timber blinds. It will then be ready for me to move all of my craft cupboards and sewing gear in to. Oh..and I suppose I had better leave a little bit of room for the sofa bed, so that we can use it for guest accomodation when needed.... ;0)
We already have the outside cladding here, which I bought to clad the front of our shouse with, and we have so much of it left over, we will have enough to clad various chook pens, and any other structures or sheds in the future. I bought the whole lot 2nd hand for $200 which was an absolute bargain. So the whole studio will be clad the same as this, a cream weatherboard look cladding.

Damian is planning on re-roofing it over the next week or two and then putting the cladding on. We got brand new zincalume roof sheets for nothing from one of our suppliers who had ordered the wrong lengths in for a customer, and Damian was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time...score.   So it should turn from the ugly duckling into a beautiful swan very soon hopefully. Damian is down in Brisbane this week on a course, we thought we would take the opportunity while he is not working to get a couple of extra licences added on to his plumbing licence, so he is currently finishing off his gas licence qualification so that we can have that as part of our offering here in town for when we open up our shopfront in a couple of weeks in the main street of town. We have to build and fit out an office and racking etc down there as well, and he also has to head back and forth to Brissie quite a bit over the next few weeks to finish his course...he is going to be a very busy boy....I don't think he has time at the moment to work in a paying job! Luckily, in the overall scheme of things we have worked very hard over the last 5-6 years especially,  setting ourselves up so that we aren't in a bad financial position, but we still have bills to pay like everyone, but because of forward planning, hopefully we should be right to manage (very frugally) while we give this new business in town a good go, and luckily Damian is very handy with building things, so we don't have to outsource any of the building work.