How Much Wood Chip Would a Wood Chip Chip?

Instead of our regular Monday evening litter pick, Karin and I headed up the hill to Dads Lane Community Association to join new Stirchley crew member Steve on his first ever GoodGym mission.

We were welcomed by another Steve, a trustee of the association who is leading the renovation of this amazing three-storey house and driving its redevelopment as a community centre to meet the needs of the local neighbourhood. There are lots of plans for classes, workspaces and events, and a new name – confusingly, the building isn't on Dads Lane at all but on Pineapple Road, which could offer some totally tropical inspiration!

We all got stuck into stripping wallpaper on the ground floor. It was the dreaded wood chip kind, but with steamers, scrapers and a mediaeval-looking tool for poking holes in the paper we got through a surprising amount of work in just a couple of hours. It was a warm night though and with the steamers going full blast it was definitely feeling like the tropics.

It'll be really exciting to follow the transformation of this building over the next few months and get involved with what happens next!