Workshopshed 2025 Year in Review

December 31, 2025

2025 was the first full year back down South and based on blog entries it would appear to have been a quiet year. I’ve been making and repairing in a dark damp garage this year. However there’s been a lot of DIY, decorating and gardening going on behind the scenes.

One of the first projects of the year was stripping out the fitted wardrobes from the master bedroom, years of smoke from the previous owners had made them smelly and sticky and they were just horrible to remove. This was followed by the removal of the carpet and a deep clean. There were many holes in the walls from historical TV and power cabling which needed filling and where the wardrobes were remove there was coving to install. The coving was a challenge to fit so a special coving cutting jig was made. We also removed some very old electrical sockets and replaced them with modern ones.

Old socket with exposed screw terminals. 13 AMP 250V MK PAY 449631 617050 Made in England

In the workshop, a new bench was painted using my favourite yellow garage floor paint.

I also visited the local independent hardware shop Elmers Hardware which has become a favourite.

Spring also saw the arrival of some new reading in the form of Arduino Software Internals which I reviewed later in the year, retro gaming magazine Pixel Addict and a book on the history of engineering in Ipswich.

Book cover for Arduino Software Internals by Norman Dunbar

Britain's Favourite Classic Computing Magazine Pixel Addict. With a feature on the Worlds Most Versatile CPU the Zilog Z80

February included some trips away including a trip to Cambridge to see tiny things and mechanical sculpture at the Cambridge Museum of Zoology.

A mechanical whale, 2018 by Matthew Lane Sanderson and Rachel Wood. It is a fantasy Zoological airship, the crew of the whale include; past and present eminent Professors of Zoology, a curator, technicians, young students and resident artists.

Fleas - Siphonoptera - One of my other hobbies.

February also saw a revisit of an old project, the TV test card. I re-worked this to test out a LCD monitor which I’ve been experimentally powering from 12v.

A square test card on a rectangular monitor.

Back to Cambridge in March to see the Centre for Computing History, Cambridge Museum of Technology and The PYE Building

The good weather in late spring meant we had the opportunity to do up the garden, the old pond was filled in with rocks, ballast and top soil, a concrete path was removed and a pergola installed.

More decorating in may with a loft room painted and lighting installed. Followed by a city break to Berlin.

Back to the garden in June to demolish a fence and two broken old sheds. It then took several months of trips to the recycling centre to finally get rid of all the rotten wood. However there was sufficient wood in one of the roofs to build some planters for the garden. One has been built so far and the wood cut for two more.

July was a trip over to Liverpool to give a talk on installing Nano Framework on Cheap Yellow Display using a mini camera rig I made for that. This was followed by a visit to the Farnell Distribution centre in Leeds. I also visited the fabulous Viktor Wynd Museum Of Curiosities, Fine Art & UnNatural History.

The garden work took its tole on the wheel barrow and the sack trolley we used. And both needed replacement wheels. For the wheelbarrow wheel replacement I used an airless wheel and the trolley I found some replacement inner tubes so replaced it that way.

September saw another trip, to Sheffield this time to share the joys of NanoFramework with them and a visit to the Pimoroni factory.

Autumn it was the hall’s turn for a redecoration and minor repairs to the stairs. We also lifted the floorboards so cabling could be added for solar panels, car charger and some other cabling. Whilst we had the boards up in the front room, I spotted some woodworm so a bunch of boards were also replaced. Part of the solar installation was to remove some old water based heating panels which had been partially decommissioned by the old owner. So a few days up in the loft removing tanks, water and a lot of copper piping. Unfortunately a couple of the tanks were asbestos so those needed a specialist to remove and dispose of them.

Finally in December, I wrote some custom code for the Pimoroni InkyFrame which was presented to my father as a Christmas present. And as usual a medal has been made for the PSTOIC dinner which you’ll find out about later in January.

The plans for 2026 are to get a new workshop built down the far end of the garden with power and networking. Then the garage will be demolished to allow the space by the house to be used for things like BBQs and socialising.