A new dyehouse

Well we've moved in - we are in utter chaos in the house and outside, but at least we are getting started! A friend of ours came over for a week to help John with his workshop, but what they actually did was lots of creating - I got some extra kitchen cabinets, so there is now space for crockery etc. John got his workbenches made and all the heavy equipment in place and I got the beginnings of my dyehouse!

This is what they started with! A good space full of my belongings - but a big mess! Haydn has the pallet truck in hand (below) - an incredibly useful tool (not that we have pallets) but it carries large things round very happily!!

By lunchtime things were progressing nicely - I had a bench down one side of the room for all my smaller dyebaths to go on - it's quite low so I can reach into the top of the bath to get at the yarns, then there's storage space underneath, perfect for plastic boxes of stored dyes and yarns.

It's great fun having a blank canvas to design your workspace - but it's also quite challenging, what do you want in there? What would you do differently to last time? What is vital and what can go elsewhere?

By the end of the day there had been great progress - cupboards up at the back, a worktop for the microwaves, kettle, scales etc. I have 2 tables to work on and lots of dyebaths around. There is a washing machine to go in there and a fridge.

Sady it is still going to be a few weeks before I can get started - there is no water available yet, and as for the electrics - we were warned when buying the property that the electrics needed looking at - so we were forewarned, but I wouldn't like to try and run my boilers off the one socket in the building! There are lots of plans afoot for water, the mains water is very hard, which will be a BIG shock to my system, I'm used to lovely soft water from the Welsh hills, I'm litterally going to have to learn my colours all over again!

But maybe I'll be able to get madder red?!