The Garden Workshop Interior....

We got back from our New Year break late yesterday evening and the first thing I did was visit the workshop to see if the oil-filled radiator had kept the room warm.

 This radiator came with the build and looked rather small to me but when I went in to check late last night the room was very warm and toastie. This one doesn't come with a built in timer so I bought one of these plug timers and my other half set it to come on twice a day I think. I am terrible with these sort of gadgets so I am always better asking for help and he enjoys it when he can come on all Alpha!!

 This is what also greeted me, a whole pile of Ikea boxes. These contain all the fixtures for my cupboards. I agonised for weeks over the design of the room as I know you only get one chance to make it right. I knew I wanted lots of drawers and no cupboards mainly because drawers work best for me in that everything is much more accessible.

 I ended up choosing the Ikea Veddinge white basic units for the reasons of price and the fact that the Ikea kitchen range was the only one that had a vast choice of drawer units perfect for me. Ordering all what I needed was a challenge and involved a number of visits to my nearest Ikea store at Lakeside, about a 35 minute drive for me normally. 

Now they just have to be built!!

 Obviously one of my main requirements of the workshop is good light I have opted for the track lights with LED daylight bulbs. These can be adjusted to point where you want which is helpful. Unfortunately there was a mistake when my bulbs were packed so at the moment I only have five of the daylight bulbs, you can see the difference with the normal bulbs. These will be replaced when the LED bulbs arrive next Monday. 

 The build also has a proper independent fuse box which should mean there will be little chance of electrical failure!

 Now I wanted to have some small open wall units put on the walls to house things like shop and room boxes and I have ordered some to sit above the houses. I didn't, however, take note of how the track lights work and hadn't appreciated that the wall height would be compromised.

 At one end of the room they also have a transformer unit and these certainly mean I can't have the open cabinets above the dolls houses on the worktop. I haven't decided how to over come this problem yet I will have to wait and see once the cabinets are in situ I think.

 As you can see my moggy is perfectly at home already!! I could chose between carpet tiles or laminate for the flooring and quite obviously chose the laminate as it will be much easier to keep clean.

 As part of the outside softening I bought these zinc planters on one of my Ikea visits. They will eventually be planted up with something very easy growing as I am no great gardener and will forget to water them in next to no time.

 This morning my lovely, helpful chippie arrived and took all the boxes in his stride. In no time at all the units began to take shape. This is the only cupboard I chose because it had to go in the corner but it does have a carousel so I won't lose things to any dark back corners.

 The units are L-shaped with two long work top areas to house my collection of houses.and my all important mini fridge! 

This is one of the reasons the Ikea range was ideal, they supply an 8-drawer unit which at 10cm high are perfect for tools, paints or papers. I won't have to go rummaging about trying to find things they should all be completely accessible. Famous last words!!

Really pleased with the progress today. Still a little concerned by how I am going to layout the work tables. I should have lots of room but it seems to be filling up fast!

Won't be long now before the big clear out begins!