I’m In ;-)
Posted: 03 Jan 2020, 17:16
Hi guy’s,
Now before I go any further, ‘guy’s’ is a generic term I use irrespective of gender, so now you know I’m not excluding anyone from this or all my future post
As I type, I’m 61, retired and laid up in bed with ‘man flu’. This means I am bored silly and restless so this could be the longest introduction post in the history of this or any other online forum. You have been warned!
So for those of you that are still reading, as stated, I am now retired and have no major work history in the woodworking industry, so what brings me here? Basically you can blame my wonderful wife, Barbara because she wanted and if I’m honest needed an art studio. But that is far to late in the introduction so I will go right back to the beginning.
When I was in secondary school half a century ago my favourite subjects all involved using my hands, back then they were called ‘woodwork’ ‘metelwork’ and ‘Tech Drawing’. I’m certain my 2 daughters school had different names for these subjects and my 3 granddaughters and 2 grandsons probably don’t even get taught them anymore
Anyway, my interest in these types of subjects was probably set in my DNA with both my grandfathers being engineers and craftsmen, and even my father being ‘on the tools’ as an electrical engineer. All were more than willing to pass on their respective skills and as a young boy I was always happy to listen and learn.
Now despite this starting to sound like an episode of ‘all our yesterdays’ or ‘Out Of Town’ with Jack Hargrieves, I am in fact a young at heart, fairly fit and active 61 year old, retirement being a life choice rather than an enforced event. In short, having left school at just shy of 16, I had been a mechanical and electrical engineer until I was 26. By then I had a wife and 2 young daughters and due to changes in the technology this career paths were rapidly changing or in some cases disappeared altogether. So a completely new and to me somewhat unexpected career change came about and I secured the next 30 years of employment in the Police Service. I had no idea when I joined or even for several years after I had joined that I had in fact stumbled into one of the best final salary pensions schemes available, and fortunately back then it was compulsory to join it.. 30 years on, there is no point continuing to work as you have already accrued you maximum pension entitlement so at 56 I ‘retired’.
I sat ‘retired’ in inverted commas because whilst sitting in front of the TV all day with the dogs for company may seem like a great way of life, trust me there is only so much ‘Jeremy Kyle’ and ‘Loose Women’ you can take. In my case it was about 2 weeks. So I bought a van, put my tools in the back, had 5000 leaflets printed which I posted myself locally, and started my own handyman business. Something part time for a couple of days a week when I needed to get out I though, but 3 or 4 years on and I found myself working full time despite turning down loads of ‘big jobs’.
In the mean time we had bought a 2nd hand caravan, changed that for brand new one and then traded that in for a new Motorhome. I was starting to wonder how I ever found time for a 30 year Police career and something had to change. Just as it had always done in my life, something did change when Barbara went part time and then fully retired and got back into ‘art’. Now this I confess is where we differ, firstly I had no idea Barbara could paint but she can and indeed she is very talented too. I on the other hand can only draw anything other than a dead straight line when it is done by mistake.
Enter into the story, my OCD. As I went through life and made hobby, career and lifestyle choices it never once occurred to me that there was anything ‘wrong’ with me. However, looking back to the woodwork, metalwork, tech drawing, discipline within the police service, and constant tidying things up behind other people, trust me that annoys them far than it annoys me, So Barbara is the creative one, and I am the practical one. Ask me to solve a problem or build something and I can do it to a high standard, ask me to come up with the creative idea in the first place and I am struggling.
Ok, so having establishes that Barbara needed an art studio if we (more specifically my OCD) were ever going to get a nice tidy dining room back, I needed to create one. This is where my practical side comes in very handy because I had the great idea of knocking down the existing prefabricated concrete garage with its asbestos concrete rook and replacing it with a brick built garage, above which I could build an art studio.. Perfect, except I have never laid a brick in my life. Ok not specifically true, I did in once build a brick fireplace in our first house (it was the late 70’s) but it didn’t need foundations, planning permission or have to comply with building regulations
Well, thanks to YouTube I am now above head height with the ‘garage’ or should that say ‘workshop’ with its 1m deep foundations, dense concrete block inner walls, full fill cavity insulation, concrete slab floor and roughly 36 sq mts floor space. The art studio level is just over half that footprint, has 1 side that is fully upvc and so it should go up fairly swiftly. The only delay is that I am stuck inside with this man flu so my attention shifted from the ‘build’ to the ‘workshop’. I have stopped the handyman business to concentrate on the build and post build I plan to split my time between creative woodwork and motorhoming.
And that boys and girls is why I joined Woodhaven2.. I did warn you it was a long intro
Now before I go any further, ‘guy’s’ is a generic term I use irrespective of gender, so now you know I’m not excluding anyone from this or all my future post
As I type, I’m 61, retired and laid up in bed with ‘man flu’. This means I am bored silly and restless so this could be the longest introduction post in the history of this or any other online forum. You have been warned!
So for those of you that are still reading, as stated, I am now retired and have no major work history in the woodworking industry, so what brings me here? Basically you can blame my wonderful wife, Barbara because she wanted and if I’m honest needed an art studio. But that is far to late in the introduction so I will go right back to the beginning.
When I was in secondary school half a century ago my favourite subjects all involved using my hands, back then they were called ‘woodwork’ ‘metelwork’ and ‘Tech Drawing’. I’m certain my 2 daughters school had different names for these subjects and my 3 granddaughters and 2 grandsons probably don’t even get taught them anymore
Anyway, my interest in these types of subjects was probably set in my DNA with both my grandfathers being engineers and craftsmen, and even my father being ‘on the tools’ as an electrical engineer. All were more than willing to pass on their respective skills and as a young boy I was always happy to listen and learn.
Now despite this starting to sound like an episode of ‘all our yesterdays’ or ‘Out Of Town’ with Jack Hargrieves, I am in fact a young at heart, fairly fit and active 61 year old, retirement being a life choice rather than an enforced event. In short, having left school at just shy of 16, I had been a mechanical and electrical engineer until I was 26. By then I had a wife and 2 young daughters and due to changes in the technology this career paths were rapidly changing or in some cases disappeared altogether. So a completely new and to me somewhat unexpected career change came about and I secured the next 30 years of employment in the Police Service. I had no idea when I joined or even for several years after I had joined that I had in fact stumbled into one of the best final salary pensions schemes available, and fortunately back then it was compulsory to join it.. 30 years on, there is no point continuing to work as you have already accrued you maximum pension entitlement so at 56 I ‘retired’.
I sat ‘retired’ in inverted commas because whilst sitting in front of the TV all day with the dogs for company may seem like a great way of life, trust me there is only so much ‘Jeremy Kyle’ and ‘Loose Women’ you can take. In my case it was about 2 weeks. So I bought a van, put my tools in the back, had 5000 leaflets printed which I posted myself locally, and started my own handyman business. Something part time for a couple of days a week when I needed to get out I though, but 3 or 4 years on and I found myself working full time despite turning down loads of ‘big jobs’.
In the mean time we had bought a 2nd hand caravan, changed that for brand new one and then traded that in for a new Motorhome. I was starting to wonder how I ever found time for a 30 year Police career and something had to change. Just as it had always done in my life, something did change when Barbara went part time and then fully retired and got back into ‘art’. Now this I confess is where we differ, firstly I had no idea Barbara could paint but she can and indeed she is very talented too. I on the other hand can only draw anything other than a dead straight line when it is done by mistake.
Enter into the story, my OCD. As I went through life and made hobby, career and lifestyle choices it never once occurred to me that there was anything ‘wrong’ with me. However, looking back to the woodwork, metalwork, tech drawing, discipline within the police service, and constant tidying things up behind other people, trust me that annoys them far than it annoys me, So Barbara is the creative one, and I am the practical one. Ask me to solve a problem or build something and I can do it to a high standard, ask me to come up with the creative idea in the first place and I am struggling.
Ok, so having establishes that Barbara needed an art studio if we (more specifically my OCD) were ever going to get a nice tidy dining room back, I needed to create one. This is where my practical side comes in very handy because I had the great idea of knocking down the existing prefabricated concrete garage with its asbestos concrete rook and replacing it with a brick built garage, above which I could build an art studio.. Perfect, except I have never laid a brick in my life. Ok not specifically true, I did in once build a brick fireplace in our first house (it was the late 70’s) but it didn’t need foundations, planning permission or have to comply with building regulations
Well, thanks to YouTube I am now above head height with the ‘garage’ or should that say ‘workshop’ with its 1m deep foundations, dense concrete block inner walls, full fill cavity insulation, concrete slab floor and roughly 36 sq mts floor space. The art studio level is just over half that footprint, has 1 side that is fully upvc and so it should go up fairly swiftly. The only delay is that I am stuck inside with this man flu so my attention shifted from the ‘build’ to the ‘workshop’. I have stopped the handyman business to concentrate on the build and post build I plan to split my time between creative woodwork and motorhoming.
And that boys and girls is why I joined Woodhaven2.. I did warn you it was a long intro