Playing At Shops in a Shed

On Saturday I had the pleasure of attending at Open Day at Gillies and Mackay, makers of fine sheds and summer houses an Errol, near Perth.

The idea was to install various artists, crafters and beauticians in different sheds and summer houses to show how they could be used for more than just sitting in or for storing a few tools.

 



 

 

 

I really enjoyed playing at shops in this beautiful summer house.

There was plenty of room for a little work table as well and if I did have this one at home in the garden, there would be room for a comfy chair to relax in and plenty of shelving as well.

 

 

As you can see, it was a lovely day on Saturday. Really bright and frosty in the morning but warming as the sun came round and filled our sheds with lots of light.

This one was inhabited for the day by The Beauty Room, Errol.

 

 

This incredible structure below is a proper living space complete with wood burning stove! It would make a wonderful home office, studio, guest accomodation or therapy room. It was being used for the day by a lady offering massage, manicures and Partylite Candles.

 

 

Another of the summer houses was occupied by Sutherland based artist Catherine Mackay. Catherine also makes beautiful enamel jewellery. Her butterfly pendants are absolutely stunning!

 

 

 

 

Even the smaller of the summer houses would make a great garden studio. In fact, I rather fancied the potting shed as it had a big window, lovely long work bench and plenty of shelving.

I will carry on day dreaming though and continue to work from my little space in our cottage. It's handy as we have a wood burning stove that keeps everything toasty through the winter and I can still look out onto the garden.

 

 

Two artists I met during my visit to Perthshire Open Studios earlier in the month do work from garden studios.

 

 

Ceri White Ceramics, Dunning

and Lorna Radbourne, Catriona Glass, also at Dunning.

 

 

 

 

 

If you fancy a visit to Gillies and Mackay, they are right next to the Cairn o' Mohr winery which has a lovely cafe, wine shop and tasting room.

 

 

 

 

Don't all these bottles look lovely with the sun shining through them!

My favourites are Spring Oak leaf and Elderberry.

 

 

 

View across The Carse of Gowrie, Perthshire

 

 

I spent some time this week listing new things in my Etsy shop and spent all day yesterday making felt so look out for lots of new pictures, boxes and jewellery coming soon!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How ToTransform A Shed in Four and Half Hours

Our shed was a mess. I had always wanted to make this into a little garden retreat but it seemed like a huge task. We always call it the Summer Shed because it has glass on two sides and although I used it a few times as a potting shed it had become a dumping ground. The roof used to leak but my husband re-felted it last year and I decided that today was the day to transform it.

As You can see the mice had a field day during the winter with some stuffing from old patio chair cushions.

The previous owner used to let his Grandchildren play in here and it was set out like a shop when we moved in.

I wonder who Katie loves now....she is 21 and had just graduated!

I gave my Dyson a real work out sooking up all the cobwebs and dust, then went rummaging for some emulsion for the walls.

I found a tin of 'Precious Jade' which must have been used for our kitchen walls goodness knows how long ago. I just gave it a good stir and slapped it on.

And here we are! A lovely wee garden hideaway. 

All the bits and pieces are taken from the house. We used to have a lilac colour scheme in the bedroom but don't now so it's great to make use of some pieces that don't really fit in the cottage any more.

I'm so pleased with how this has turned out! The extension cable reaches here from the cottage so I can see me doing some crafting out here aswell as relaxing with a book.

I've managed to squeeze in two adult sized chairs as well as a child sized arm chair and a wee stool.

The old sea chest is housing all the plastic pots and seed trays and I have a big pile of stuff to go to the recycling centre. I managed to squirrel away some of the other stuff into our other shed so that only leaves one homeless bike.......it's not coming back in here!