A Studio with a View
Well, here we are the middle of another lockdown…albeit with hopefully the end in sight now! Since we relocated to Wales in March last year things have certainly been eventful and we have been so busy working on our new studio that at least we haven’t had a chance to get bored with staying at home (plus it is really beautiful here).
sunset-nov-5-blog
hawthorns-november-blog
ziggy-leigh-snow-wm
moosiesdawnmay-wm
snow-years-eve-still-blog
Cottages-Xmas-Snow-wm
view-0ct14-blog
Snowscape04-wm
The first lockdown in 2020 delayed the start of our studio build so we spent a few months renovating our holiday cottages first. They needed a complete revamp and new furniture and furnishings and we quite enjoyed getting stuck in ripping out the old bathrooms and sprucing everything up. We managed to get them finished by July when travel restrictions were lifted and we were able to have our first guests.
02Woodpeckerbedroom-wm
01Woodpeckerbathroom-wm
RK-Living-Bed-wm
Woodpecker-3614-edited-wm
woodpecker-3598-living-wm
RK-Bathroom-02-wm
RK-living-04-wm
RK-Bedroom1-wm
We are so pleased with how they look now and have had rave reviews from our guests. We were fully booked from July through to November, before the lockdowns started again. You can see our Holiday Cottages website here: https://www.coedmorcottages.co.uk
In the meantime, we finally got started with our new studio 😃 We got all planning and building regulations approved and Leigh started digging for the foundations in July 2020 and had the concrete poured in August…in the middle of Storm Ellen.
In September we made excellent progress as we had some help from Leigh’s Dad & Uncle. The main structure went up and we suddenly realised how big the studio is going to be!
Next stage was installing the bifold doors and getting the rubber on the roof (the weather was so hot that day that Leigh burnt his knees) 
The exterior of the walls then got covered with Housewrap which is a breathable membrane which stops rain getting in but lets water vapour out 
Next Leigh put the first of the exterior cladding on.
The inside walls are insulated to within an inch of their lives! This was Leigh’s least favourite job…it took days and he had to wear a Breaking Bad style mask because of the dust 
We also then started building the internal wall for the toilet/changing room before lining the walls with another weatherproof membrane. Then on to the exciting job of putting up the plasterboard! Now it looks more like a real room.
The laborious job of preparing the plasterboard joints for painting wasn’t so much fun. But we managed to get the office walls primed and the undercoat sprayed on before Christmas. The 2nd fix electrics were also completed so we were able to have the ceiling lights fitted. We’ve also put speakers in the ceiling for when we play music. We really love the soffit lights on the outside of the building. 😍
We had some time off over Christmas but weren’t able to see our family due to travel restrictions in Wales. But we did have some amazing weather which made everything so beautiful it lifted our spirits.
In January, things started to progress really quickly. We painted the studio ceiling a neutral grey and got our black wall and white walls at the back of the studio finished. Then we installed the flooring – a nice warm-toned oak – along with the fancy architrave and skirting boards on the doorway to the office. This is going to be a great area for shooting- we have big plans for the walls!
We’ve come a long way and the next phase is the fun part – fitting out the different areas for our various studio sets. If travel restrictions are lifted, we will be offering Mighty Aphrodite shoots from May onwards. More updates when we have finished the next stage of our studio build. 😊