If you’ve ever wanted to know how to turn a battered old
chair into something worth sitting on and beautiful to look at, you’d do well to
truck on down to The Goodlife Centre near Waterloo.
With my newly acquired title of Craft Wrangler at Red Door,
I thought it best I ‘skill up’ and get some woodworking techniques under my
belt. I was so impressed with the
Goodlife Centre website and the courses on
offer that I booked myself onto their
‘Furniture Painting Techniques’ course. But I was happily spoilt for choice as they have a variety of classes covering
basic woodworking techniques, hand caning, DIY in a day and even basic
electrics.
This is not your regular crafting with cupcakes scenario, nor is it
a boys-own fest of macho hobbyists – it is the wonderful happy medium of grown up
classes covering really useful skills.
The venue itself is great – not huge, but big enough to
accommodate a class of ten or so, with a nicely furnished chill out area near
the front door and a second smaller workshop room. Even the toilet facilities
have been thoughtfully furnished. The Goodlife is as good as its word, it’s a
very positive place with a quirky DIY vibe – I liked it a lot.
Our host at the Centre was
Alison who has an eclectic array
of design skills and the Centre is styled and equipped to be the workshop of
Alison’s dreams.
Besides creating beautiful objects at the Centre Alison
also leads workshops, but for this class our tutor was Rebecca, a fully
qualified painter and decorator with years of experience.
The great thing about this course (and all other
courses at the Centre I suspect) is its hands-on practical approach – we were
striping, sanding, priming and painting real bits of furniture and making real
messes with real products.
The theory and products were explained clearly by Rebecca and we were encouraged to experiment with own samples such techniques as
distressing, decoupage and graining along with skilful painting and the general
approach to ‘sizing up’ a piece of furniture prior to sloshing paint on it –
what does the piece say to you, how best to adapt it, might it be better left
unpainted?
My only criticism is given the amount of
techniques to hand and taking preparation and drying time in account, the day
felt a little crammed – Alison and Rebecca are keen to impart so much
knowledge.
I wanted to know so much about the Centre itself and the nature of
Alison’s ‘sustainable ethos’ that I rather guiltily hung around at the end of
the session as they cleaned up in order to fire a few questions.
I would find it quite an expensive undertaking to
complete more than a couple of courses a year sadly – they don’t come cheap - but
this is understandable given the expertise of the tutors and the variety and
quality of the sessions.
And I learned lots ...
