Summer house Part 3

When I was looking for ideas for the summer house I stumbled across these funky storage boxes which I decided would be perfect for the summer house. 

They were pretty simple to make, the unit is the kallax shelving unit,  I brought most of the boxes from IKEA then followed this blog post http://sugartotdesigns.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/superhero-bins-tutorial-and-printable.html?m=1 on how to make the simple box. I did ask J what boxes he wanted. I then googled the logo and planned which felt I needed to buy. Total cost was about £15 (excluding the storage unit)

Me and J are super happy with the results. I would say if J was older I would have got him to help me.

Next project was the cushions, I started with the simple 50x50 ones. I say simple but I did end up having a private sewing lesson and had to buy a sewing machine.

I opted for the John Lewis JL110 as I preferred it to the hobby craft ones. 

I decided that I wanted zipped cushions 

Material wise I brought the purple from my local fabric shop, it pretty much matches the lilac of the summer house. The cost was about £3 a meter and I brought 3 meters. The Zips I got off eBay for about £3 for 10.

And then 2 statement ones, fabric was from John Lewis and rather expensive.

Next was the hula play tent. I found this post https://bluehousejoys.com/hula-hoop-tent-tutorial/and decided it was pretty simple idea. 

For the top bit I followed this post

http://www.abeautifulmess.com/2015/05/hula-hoop-tent-tutorial.html#_a5y_p=3768182

I brought the curtain from IKEA £15, the hula for a toy shop £2. The fabric from my local fabric shop, 2 meters was about enough £4.44 For my 1st attempt I'm happy with it. Approx £22 though I did re do the top tent bit. I tied the hula on with ribbon I already had.

J seems happy with the result. I already had the cusions at home.

Last task was the bench cusions. You can buy the bench pad from IKEA that sits on top of the boxes but I decided I wanted mine thicker and a differs pattern.  The cushions all match the summer house. I brought the foam from eBay, cut to measure worked out maybe slightly more than I wanted at £15 each. Fabric after a lot of searching I brought that from eBay too and then got the Velcro from my local fabric shop. Total cost was probably £25 each one.

I followed this post mostly for the main cushion https://campervanconverts.com/2012/03/11/how-to-sew-fabulous-seat-cushions-even-if-youre-a-complete-beginner-part-2/

And then this for the velco http://centsationalgirl.com/2012/10/simple-sew-box-cushion-cover/ 

There are a couple of things I changed between making the 1st one and the 2nd one, also the velco bit wasn't perfect.

Overall I am happy with the results. 

For all the sewing projects I made templates before I cut any of my material. I would recommend this for anyone.

I still have to make the blind at some point.

Summer house project part 2

Once the summer house was built it was then time to start painting, due to an great offer from Dunster we brought the summer house during their sale ( please note they have sales every couple of months)  but it meant it came and had to be painted within a couple of weeks as the wood is untreated. After looking at all the paint options I decided to buy the protek paint which was most recommend . I found that Gardenstreet.co.uk seemed to be the cheapest. You can order paint sample from Protek them selves.

I picked China clay as the main colour. I brought 10 litres which did all of the outside 2 coats and 1 coat inside the summer house. French lilac for the summer house door and Windows, I ordered 2.5 litres but probably only needed 1litres.

2 days of painting later and the outside was all done. With the paint you have to paint both coats within about 4 hours.

We added guttering ourselves.

The plan was always for the summer house somewhere where I could spend time in the summer with J and then as he grows up somewhere he can go with friends to play. 

If you've not discovered Pinterest yet you so need to, I got loads of ideas from there and will do another post about the bits I made, from that I had pretty much decided on what furniture I wanted. 

Storage wise we brought the an IKEA kallax shelving unit, 2 X stuva storage storage boxes. We already had the big Bertha bean bag.

Overall result is I'm very pleased with the result. Now we just need to finish the garden.

Summer House Project part 1

When we moved into our house over 3 yrs ago at the end of the garden was this horrible garage. 3 years of discussions with the hubby later we finally agree to replace it. 

We took various trips out to an assaultmant of garden centres to look at our best option as I wanted a summer house and hubby needed somewhere to store his motorbike. No where actually did the whole solution we wanted so with a some help from a builder we finally came up with a solution that would suit both of us.

I know that originally hubby wanted to take on the project himself but with J things get harder and harder as he just wants to help us do everything, that would be fine if I was happy to wait 3 yr's for it to be done.

Once everything was ordered the 1st part of the project was to get the builder to rip down the garage and make the concrete base bigger. 

Then came the fun of the massive jigsaw puzzle.

In the end we brought a 3x3 Avon summer house from Dunster House and the billy oh bike shed from garden buildings direct. We had to get our builder to turn the bike shed around so it would sit on the left of the summer house as it wasn't originally designed to be that way around.

2 days later the summer house and bike shed were built