Carreducker Shoe Making School Studio W9

We've given you the odd glimpse of our new studio space but we are delighted to reveal it here in all its glory and the journey we took to create a fit-for-purpose teaching and shoe making space...with a huge thank you to Alex for a great fit out!

This is the empty shell with everything stripped out.

Apart from the sink and the massive heating pipes which run along the length of the space - very toasty

Notice horrible fire door which blocks out so much light - replaced by one with glass panels. Anyone need a door?

Yours truly painting. This is the first job we did before we built the furniture.

There was an ancient telecom box on the wall which we removed - the engineer had never seen anything like it.

Nasty and in the way.

Et voila, clean, painted wall.

The floor gets a light grey paint.

A long shelf went up along the far wall, suspended on chains and a batten. Most of our storage will be here.

Work top with a storage trolley on wheels

Stuff gets moved in before everything is finshed.

Then we build a storage unit for all the school stuff; tools and grindery.

We boxed in a downpipe from an old radiator we removed.

With everything built, we moved all our stuff in and have the task of housing it in the right place. It is quite a luxury to design a space knowing your needs and what you want to do in it. Hopefully we will get it right from the start. And be able to work more efficiently in a healthier environment.

You can just see the new glass door on the right and the track spot lights in the work area. This is where we will be making shoes and teaching our shoemaking classes.

The office area. We tried to divide the room in two with the leather store as the divider. It works pretty well and provides more wall space. We are going to make a tool wall on the workshop side with a space for everything.

Two small display cabinets for shoes.

Our lovely Bakers leather hanging up in the corner behind our new custom built work table which will expand from 1.2m up to 2.2m for when we have shoemaking courses. And it, like everything else is on wheels which makes life much easier.

We are by no means finished yet, but the end is in sight. We just need to re-home two more boxes and we're there. Plus some painting; shelves; tweaking and general shifting of stuff around in an endless and tiring carousel. Excellent!

We're really excited and can't wait to welcome back our evening shoemaking class students to their new venue and to welcoming our one-to-one and intensive course students later in the year. That is on the 13th, guys, if any of you are reading this.

Having just seen a customer this morning, Easter starts here. Have a good one and, until next week, happy shoemaking!