This is the hard bit…

We thought we’d share with you the nightmare that is sorting out and storing the stuff in the workshop. This is the treasured collection from years of not throwing anything away because it will probably come in useful.  We still don’t want to throw much of it away but trying to come up with a solution to its short term storage has been a bit problematic.

 We considered getting a container put on the drive and just piling everything in there. It would be secure and dry, if a little inconvenient . But our problem is that the stuff will have to stay outside the workshop after the professionals have finished in order for us to put in wiring, decide whether to plaster or limewash the walls, build new shelving etc etc.  Being realistic, it will probably take a lot of the winter. The cost for that length of time for a container was over £1000 so we gave up that idea.
Next thought of another shed but then there was the problem of siting it, preparing a surface etc etc and we already have two sheds so we decided against that too.  Our final solution was to shuffle things around in the sheds to make room in them for the things that need to be protected. So the wood was moved out of the woodshed to make room for some of the workshop storage. Then of course we needed to sort the wood into usable and firewood.  We now need to store the wood.

 We’ve decided to go for a small marquee!  This should keep stuff like the usable wood fairly dry (we’ve also done belt & braces by buying some tarpaulins) and let us keep non-valuable things in one place.
You can see in the photo that we’ve got as far as putting some of the wood inside – although that means that we’ve had to displace the picnic table from its place to give us a hard standing).  We’re trying to deal with sorting the workshop stuff out and even throwing some things away – painful as it is.  We’ve had to go for a tarpaulin solution to the two heavy workbenches (thrown out chemistry bench) so our drive is going to have them on it for the winter. 

Once we’ve done that we’ve got to complete moving everything from around the house ready for the scaffolding. We’ve moved the pot plants but there’s still all the stone left from building a retaining wall and the cobbles which will go down to complete the paths once the work is done.. It’s starting to feel like a race against time now. We’ve got visitors next weekend so we’re planning a move of the heavy items while we’ve got some muscle to help. Good job it’s family!