New House – new workshop

I’ve been a little quiet on the blog for a little while, because we’ve been in the process of moving house. Lots of packing and worrying about logistics etc. Of course the biggest question mark was the moving of the workshop!

Well now we’re finally in. The new house is amazing, and we’ve had a super sunny first week to really enjoy the new area we’re living in. One of the attractions of the house is that actually it needs redecorating throughout, so we still have boxes everywhere and a daunting task ahead to figure out what to do first and what exactly it is we want to do in every room.

The process of moving was, as always, massively frustrating and fraught with stress. Every time I go through it I wind up feeling two things strongly. 1) I’m never going to move again. 2) The whole industry of estate agents and solicitors is ripe to be completely revolutionised and swept away with maybe one big player intent to make it a modern process.

The first is fairly simple, and I really do not have any intention of moving again at this point. This house is perfect, and it was good enough for the previous owners to live in for 30 years, I consider that a challenge and am aiming to beat their high score.

The second always fades as I realise that I’m not planning on moving again. which I guess is what everyone does which is why it is still a horrific experience to try buying a house and why solicitors and estate agents get to operate as if the internet age essentially hasn’t happened. There is really no excuse as to why initial introduction with solicitor doesn’t involve agreeing on a secure online form of communication which subsequently allows you to authorise all documents electronically. no need to post bits of dead tree around with ‘wet ink’ on them. Right there you could wipe a few weeks off the process.

If you are in any way inclined in the space of solicitors/conveyancing I really think the market is wide open for you to totally dominate the house moving market. I wish someone would, but that someone will not be me.

I am now just really happy to know I no longer have to deal with estate agents, with the small exception of recovering what I can of my deposit on the rental we moved out of. I sold off the house I was renting a while ago, but now I live in my own house again I really feel the full force of no more random calls with urgent repairs required by my tenant, and no more having to go through a lazy, inefficient estate agency to get anything fixed in my own property.

Just as moving out the workshop was a big consideration, now that we’re in, a big consideration is that I am once again faced with the chance to design my workshop layout. Last time I had restrictions of not bolting anything to the walls, since I was only renting. This time I can hopefully give myself much more decent bench space. Also last time I decided to put my lathe in the middle of the space, I felt previously I’d been a little restricted having it bolted to a wall particularly trying to hollow items. The swing of the tool would clash with the wall. However I think I really just need to give it a little more space out from the wall, it doesn’t need to be in the middle taking up more space. Of course this time around I know that I want to rebuild my cnc machine, so I will have to allot space in the plan for that. And  consider if I’m going to aim for a slightly larger build for this iteration.

There is so much to do in the workshop that I need to remember that first there are other priorities in the house itself. There may come a point of chicken and egg, there are good reasons to get some of the rooms in the house done first, however doing them will require tools which are currently buried in boxes in the garage, so may necessitate a certain amount of workshop sorting to get at them.

So, where to start? we have walls to strip of wallpaper, carpet to rip up and replace with various flooring, bathrooms to replace, a window we’d like to turn into a door,  a kitchen to replace, a fireplace to remodel, a workshop to set up…
Any tips or tricks I should consider? pitfalls to look out for? let me know!