Wayne Explains

During lockdown Wayne Perrey has been entertaining and educating us all with his DIY knowledge. On his Instagram account he has been producing Daily DIY tips with videos and blogs that demystify and explain how to do anything from changing a plug to tips on how to plaster.

One of our favourites was his brilliant video on how to make and install timber panelling. He used his sophisticated entrance hallway transformation to take us through the steps, from planning, building, to painting with Thorndown Avalon Blue Wood Paint to make it look fabulous!

Follow TV Carpenter Wayne Perrey on Instagram to keep up with it all.

As lockdown restrictions ease, shed show sites are able to re-open with social distancing and health measures in place.

Garden Affairs have re-opened on an appointment basis for customers to peruse their range of fabulous garden buildings.

Local shed manufacturer and buildings supplier Taunton Sheds, have also re-opened their show site. With plenty of space and lots of beautiful buildings to explore, it’s a pretty easy job for people to stick to social distancing.

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Visits can be made on an appointment basis or a drop-in visit. They have also supplied latex gloves and hand sanitiser for customers to use.

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It’s great to see businesses and life returning to a bit of normality – or at least a new normal!

Temporary Services with Covid-19

The coronavirus has affected every part of our business and supply chain, and we’ve had to adapt quickly to fulfil orders and deliver our paint to your homes.

TINS

Our tin manufacturer is based in London. They make our lovely bespoke sized tins but have been affected with reduced staff and the factory that normally makes and supplies them with the labels that they apply to our tins, shutdown because of the virus. This meant they had to search like crazy for another label company to supply them. Coupled with extra demand this has all lead to an increased lead time for our tins.

With sales orders at 4 times (6 times on some days) the normal level we had to get temporary substitute tins in and turned to a company that we know of old. They supplied us with great 2.5 litre tins but they’re a different size and shape to our normal tins. We also turned to our lovely local printers St Andrews Press who printed hundreds of emergency labels for us to apply to these tins.

The labels not only mean it takes us twice the time to bottle as we have to hand apply labels to each tin, front and back, but they are made of paper stock that reacts to metal and can easily develop air bubbles.

Our temporary 750ml tins have had to come from another supplier and many of them have rust on the outside. This rust doesn’t look great but it is superficial so the paint inside is still of the same high quality.

BOXES

All of our boxes are bespoke sizes to fit our tins and combinations of. Our box manufacturer has also been affected by the virus with reduced staffing and increased volume of sales so supply to us is delayed. So, more temporary fixes! The boxes we’re having to use don’t fit our tins brilliantly so we have to cut some down to size and pack others so the tins are nice and snug inside.

TEMP STAFF

After getting some builder friends in to rapidly expand and re-fit some of the factory, we have been able to employ some temp staff within social distancing guidelines, who are valiantly helping us to work through the backlog of orders.

TEMP SERVICE

We hope to catch-up on orders and reduce the lead time in May. However who knows what the future has in store, but we would like to thank everyone for their patience and understanding and assure you that we are doing everything humanly possible to keep paint flowing and work to a return to normal service.

Time to Get Shady with Peelable Glass Paint

As the heat and strength of the sun increases it is time to add shading to your greenhouse to protect seedlings.

Leading greenhouse manufacturer and supplier Vitavia, teamed up with Agents of Field to create a great little demo video on using our Peelable Glass Paint.

They used Ogre Orange as that is a great match for one of their brand colours. A bright and happy orange that cheers up any glass!

You can see their video and others on how to shade your greenhouse in our Projects area under Greenhouse Shading, or follow this link.

See Greenhouse Shading Videos

Painting and Planting Garden Planters

With garden centres and nurseries re-open, cheer yourself up and overhaul a planter.

As the weather improves and timber planters have dried out, now is the perfect time to maintain them before plants start to shoot up and out. Paint new or old timber planters and terracotta pots with Thorndown Wood Paint for long-lasting colour and protection.

This planter was painted in Old Sage Green from the NEW Somerset Heritage Colour Collection ready to be planted up with a bushy hellebore and two stunning clematis Snowdrift from plantsman and nursery owner at Floyds Climbers and Clematis.

His plants are grown to the highest standards and are always healthy and beautiful. Delivered direct to your door it can’t get any better, especially now!

Read the full project article on how to paint and plant up your planters by following the link.

Garden Festivals and Show Dates Delayed

Due to the Coronavirus many shows and garden festivals have been delayed until later in the year to help slow the spread.

Toby Buckland’s Wild & Wonderful Garden Festival at Powderham Castle

This was due to be held on the first weekend of May but has been postponed to Friday 17th and Saturday 18th July 2020. Hopefully all shall be well by then and most people’s lives will be returning to normal. A great garden festival is just the thing to add cheer at any time and this festival is always packed full of amazing nurseries, top speakers, crafts, food, and some paint from us.

We will post any updates but to buy tickets and find out all the latest news visit Toby Buckland’s Facebook page or website. If all goes according to plan then we’ll be helping Toby and his team to make this garden festival full of colour!

The Ideal Home Show

New dates for this incredibly popular and long-lasting show will be announced shortly. Wayne Perrey will take the TV Carpenter Podcast onto the main stage and carry out live interviews with a set of fascinating guests from the worlds of garden/exterior and interior design.

We will post announcements when we know and you can also keep up to date via their website and social media channels. Once the date has been confirmed we will re-run the competition to win 2 pairs of tickets to the show.

Statement Regarding Coronavirus (Covid-19) from Thorndown

Following the announcement regarding Lockdown III starting in England on Tuesday 5th January 2021, we are happy to say that our factory can remain open and continue to make and deliver our Wood Paint and Peelable Glass Paint direct to your door.

Currently delivery times remain at our standard 1-3 working days from date of order with the majority of courier orders being delivered the next day for orders placed before 12.00 noon. The postal service is still experiencing some delays so packages sent out using the Royal Mail 1st Class Small Parcels Service can take 2-3 days for delivery.

Couriers are still operating on restricted staff in their hubs due to the pandemic and social distancing regulations so if the courier network becomes overwhelmed with a large increase in packages, we will keep you up to date on how that will affect our lead times.

Stay safe!

HEALTH

From the very start we have been following guidance and put in action increased cleanliness routines to minimise the spread of the virus. Health & Safety policies are firmly in place and being reviewed as the situation changes. Antibacterial soap, hand sanitisers and antibacterial wipes are very active and social distancing measures are in place.

We would like to reassure you that the safety and wellbeing of our staff and customers is paramount. Whilst all workshops and shows are cancelled for the foreseeable future our business is operating as normal with deliveries unaffected to our trade customers and home deliveries via our online shop.

SHOPPING

You can order as normal via our online shop Thorndown.co.uk or over the phone on 01458 258588.

You can still enjoy our wood paint range including the new colours in the Somerset Heritage Colour Collection, or choose from all 1800 RAL Classic and Design colours for your exterior and interior wood painting projects.

Our Peelable Glass Paint Craft Packs and Rainbow Packs are the perfect way to craft away the hours and add some colourful cheer to your homes and gardens.

If you’re lucky enough to have a greenhouse and can sow your own veggie seeds you can use our Peelable Glass Paint as a greenhouse shading paint.

DELIVERIES

Our couriers continue to be very proactive in following health guidance to keep their staff and customers safe. We use Royal Mail, Parcel Force and Priority Express to deliver our packages and they continue to be as professional as ever. Each have put in place safety procedures and when delivering packages to your homes they will:

1. Not ask you to sign anything. They will put your package down, knock on the door or ring the bell, stand back 2 meters and when the door is answered, the courier will record the name of the person who is accepting the delivery
2. If there is no-one at home they will leave a card as usual with contact details for the depot who you can contact to re-arrange delivery
3. As always there is an option to ‘Leave somewhere safe’ when placing an order with us. You can use this option when you are ordering your paint to leave instructions for the courier to leave the package somewhere safe if you think you’ll be out, or would prefer not to have any contact with a courier. Just remember to enter details in your ‘Order Notes’ during the checkout process

Deliveries are currently not being affected by the virus but couriers are no longer able to guarantee next day delivery as their depots get increasingly busy with the heightened demand for home delivery, and in the event of staff shortages due to illness. We may have to be a little more patient than normal although the courier companies and delivery drivers are doing an amazing job of keeping deliveries as fast as ever!

LOCAL COLLECTION

We are able to continue to offer this service abiding by social distancing, wearing of masks, and sanitising of hands. We will contact you when your order is ready to arrange a collection date and time.

CLOSURE

If we have to shut the factory down we will give customers as much notice as possible. A statement will be put on the online shop and on our social media channels, along with an update going out to our newsletter subscribers.

Thank you for your continued support and hope you are all keeping well and safe.

Create an Allotment Hideaway with Thorndown Wood Paint

The rather fabulous Garden Affairs design and build a range of stunning garden buildings from sheds to offices and grand garages.

One of their directors built a shed on her allotment patch with leftover materials, designing it to settle snugly and discretely in the plot.

Rules on allotment builds were very strict and the use of colour to paint the shed with was a very contentious issue.

Luckily the council and other allotment goers loved her choice of Bishop Blue Wood Paint and the finished result is a beautiful hideaway to store tools, seeds, growing material, and escape for a cuppa when the rain sets in.

Create a Heavenly Hallway with Avalon Blue Wood Paint

TV Carpenter Wayne Perrey and his wife had a sneak preview of the new Somerset Heritage Colour Collection. Their old hallway needed some love and after falling for five of the new colours, they selected Avalon Blue Wood Paint to be the star of their makeover.

Wayne built wood panelling along the sides of the hallway, painting it with deeply mystical Avalon Blue, along with the skirting boards, window frames and doors. He also built a long hall mirror and rattan screening to hide a panel of safety glass.

You can read about the whole build and transformation here, getting some great design tip along the way.

Get 25% off the Peelable Glass Paint Easter Stencil Craft Pack

Decorate your house or shop ready for the Easter bunny by painting Easter scenes on your windows. You can also create lots of craft, gift and decorative items to cheer up your home or give away to friends and family.

As an alternative to shop bought Easter Eggs how about reusing old glass jars and bottles to make a personalised gift? Paint a bottle and turn it into a vase, or paint and plant up an old plastic plant pot with spring bulbs. Or for those with a sweet tooth you can paint an old glass jar or plastic pot, fill with chocolate or sweets and delight someone with a unique Easter gift.

The Easter Stencil Craft Pack comes with 6 Easter stencils, art brush and 4 x 40 ml Peelable Glass Paint craft tins in colours suited to the theme.

Enter discount code CHICK25 in the ‘Apply Coupon’ box in your basket to save £5 bringing it down to a bargain £15.00!! Coupon valid to 31/3/21.

For ideas and inspiration head to the Craft Pack page for all design options and lots of photos and tips for getting crafty with Peelable Glass Paint. And don’t forget that you once you’re done you can just peel the paint away, but if you like it, just leave it on and it will last for years!