Glosters Creative Hub

So this blog post feels a little late.. but better late than never right?

You maybe have noticed that in January we worked like crazy to open our new creative hub above Glosters. A space for us to expand the courses we offer but also a space that other makers to run courses in and creative groups can come together as well as new makers to work in.

It's some thing we had planned for a while, and for some reason I thought would be pretty straight forward! A disused flat that wasn't habitable, involved walking through a potters workshop to get to, you'd have though getting change of use for us to expand the business would be pretty straight forward right? Wrong! Seems in life there are people who like to stand in your way... and object against applications... but with the support of both our local councillors and the vast majority of the town council we got there in the end even though it was later than expected. 

The planning came through in December and as you can imagine we where pretty busy! We had a good idea of what we wanted to make the space into so we didn't worry too much... by the time we got to christmas the seasonal exhaustion had kicked in and we where in need of a rest asap! 

We made a pact not to come to work until january 2nd, and surprisingly we stuck to that! That left 25 days! 25 days to make this disused, run down flat... into an inspiring creative space! 

Rather naively I thought that chip boarding some walls would be super quick and easy.. again... wrong! Obviously no wall is ever straight, particular in any building we've ever owned! (really must opt for a new build bungalow next time!)  

Tom and his dad worked tirelessly chip boarding all the walls that needed it, making gorgeous window box seats and fabulous tables in each room. It really is a magically transformation!

Next up was my duties! Paint and styling! I spent my Christmas holidays searching for some cool prints to include on the walls, we opted to paint the remaining walls in the same 'Glosters blue' as we have in the office. The floor turned out to be wooden floor boards, they did however look a little tired... so we painted those in a floor paint in grey, it instantly made the rooms look tidy and brighter. 

I'd set my heart on a persian rug... I blame instagram entirely!

I wanted huge rug to go beneath the huge table the guys where building, I just felt it'd make the place a little more homely and less bare. I found a cracking rug second hand on ebay and relatively close to us too so i bought and collected that, it fitted in great!

Mother Griffiths came across some glittery table cloth fabric on her journeys so the table is now covered to stop any damage. 

We've bought 6 brand new seeing machines for our sewing room, each machine is available to rent on a daily basis or the whole room is available to rent. 

Rather importantly we also made sure we had a kitchen space for cakes and tea!

Just when we thought we had a couple of days left to finish it all... we had a call from Visit Britain! Would it be okay to come and film the next day.... 'errmmm... yes!' so a manic 18 hour shift and we got the space finished for some filming too!

On Saturday January 27th we invited the public to our open afternoon! A chance for everyone to see the space and also make a free lip balm with Vicki from The Soap Mine in Beddgelert. These things are always strange... how many people will actually turn up? But despite the cold weather we had appox. 50 come to see our new space, many booking on some of our courses or booking the room to run a core, a successful afternoon. 

The first of our courses are now online here- They are booking quickly.... 

 https://www.glosters.co.uk/collections/courses

Prices for renting the room are here-

https://www.glosters.co.uk/pages/creativehub

So there we have it! One year in the planning and making and the hub is up running :) 

 M x