The shop

After what felt like months of searching, we finally found a shop which felt like it ticked all the boxes for our little Pottery Painting Studio. Here it is - as you can see, it needs a little TLC.

After brief contract negotiations (very grown-up!), we got access last week and set to sprucing the place up.

The existing decor is an ...interesting mix of pub carpet, hanging basket brackets, and thick textured wallpaper painted roughly the colour of processed cheese.
For the strong of stomach, here's what came off the walls:

Tip: if you need to strip a considerable square-footage of vinyl wall-cladding, make like Freddy Kruger and slash it to bits. This is (a) a great stress-reliever and (b) allows the hot water to sink in and oh-so-helpfully dissolve the lower layers, meaning it can be satisfyingly peeled off, like PVA glue from the back of a hand. Why yes, I did pay attention in art class, what do you mean?
Two days of this:

(I'm blurry because I'm moving so fast, OK?)
And this:

and we'd managed to take it down to the super-retro original faux wood panelling.
The pups helped. Well, if by 'helped', you mean 'play fought, lolled around, attempted to eat pieces of wallpaper'.

(They were only peeved because they can smell the beach from the shop, and boy do they LOVE the beach.)
Next stop: learn to wallpaper, with the help of the internet. Should be easy enough, right?