My wife and I are just in the process of moving house and having signed contracts last Friday, I’m now sufficiently comfortable that the move is really going to happen to be able to tell you a little story...
So we found a very nice house on the internet, called up to get more details and to arrange a viewing, and during the conversation with the auctioneer we were told that there was a substantial workshop included with the property. Any seasoned house-hunter in Ireland will know that 999 times out of 1000, the promise of a workshop-type structure usually turns out to be a run-down old haybarn/cattle shed etc., so I was more than able to contain my excitement :|. The brochure for the property had not arrived by the day of the viewing, so off we went to see the house being none the wiser about what awaited us :-$
We arrived at the house, looked around the main building, then the auctioneer says ‘would you like to see the workshop now?’ OK, so off we go through a doorway into an extension built on to the back of the house, which turns out to be a massive purpose-built workshop, (cover your eyes, Adam) size 9.1m x 7.6m!!! Sat in the middle, almost lost in the acres of space, is a Scheppach TS4010 with sliding carriage, home-made outfeed table measuring a full 8’x4’, some huge roller stands etc. The Scheppach is plugged into a dedicated 32A supply, and there are plenty of double sockets on a separate ring-main as well. Down one side of the shop, there is a Norm-style mitre station with Makita SCMS, with at least 8’ of bench either side of the saw. Scattered around the rest of the workshop are a Makita thicknesser, triton router table, several workbenches etc. etc. By this stage my knees are starting to tremble. Worryingly, SWMBO looks very impressed too... 8-[
We go outside for oxygen, and the auctioneer leads us over to some more smart-looking outbuildings the other side of the courtyard. ‘I think this one is used as a woodstore’ he says, and we peer in to see lots of boards of sawn hardwood (mostly Mahogany) stacked up. Then the next one is another nice big space, 7.2m x 3.4m.
The house was very impressive too, so we go through the usual shenanigans and a few days later we are sale-agreed, and we come back to meet the owners and to have a second look. The husband is the woodworker, and needless to say we get on brilliantly. We walk around the workshop and he asks if we want various benches/cupboards to be left behind, then he takes us over to the woodstore and asks if we would like him to leave the contents… :shock: I manage to splutter out a ‘Yes, please’.
So you might think that things are going pretty well for me at this moment, but when we get home SWMBO and I talk about our various requirements - most pertinently, what building she is going to use as a studio. In an ideal world, she would like a studio away from the house, but we have an ‘impending arrival’ due shortly after we move \
/, and having a studio at home makes more sense for the immediate future. She needs somewhere pretty large, and of course the requirements of her career have to take precedence over my expensive, unproductive hobby :roll:. So unless I find another suitable building nearby, I’ll just have to make do with the 7.2m x 3.4m workshop , with the adjoining woodstore…still about a 400% increase on the size of my current workshop, but not quite the Nirvana that could have been :-({|=
I'm still really excited about planning the new space from scratch, luckily SWMBO needs it too so it can be a big priority. ‘The Workshop Book’ is winging its way from Amazon as I type...
Cheers,
Neil
So we found a very nice house on the internet, called up to get more details and to arrange a viewing, and during the conversation with the auctioneer we were told that there was a substantial workshop included with the property. Any seasoned house-hunter in Ireland will know that 999 times out of 1000, the promise of a workshop-type structure usually turns out to be a run-down old haybarn/cattle shed etc., so I was more than able to contain my excitement :|. The brochure for the property had not arrived by the day of the viewing, so off we went to see the house being none the wiser about what awaited us :-$
We arrived at the house, looked around the main building, then the auctioneer says ‘would you like to see the workshop now?’ OK, so off we go through a doorway into an extension built on to the back of the house, which turns out to be a massive purpose-built workshop, (cover your eyes, Adam) size 9.1m x 7.6m!!! Sat in the middle, almost lost in the acres of space, is a Scheppach TS4010 with sliding carriage, home-made outfeed table measuring a full 8’x4’, some huge roller stands etc. The Scheppach is plugged into a dedicated 32A supply, and there are plenty of double sockets on a separate ring-main as well. Down one side of the shop, there is a Norm-style mitre station with Makita SCMS, with at least 8’ of bench either side of the saw. Scattered around the rest of the workshop are a Makita thicknesser, triton router table, several workbenches etc. etc. By this stage my knees are starting to tremble. Worryingly, SWMBO looks very impressed too... 8-[
We go outside for oxygen, and the auctioneer leads us over to some more smart-looking outbuildings the other side of the courtyard. ‘I think this one is used as a woodstore’ he says, and we peer in to see lots of boards of sawn hardwood (mostly Mahogany) stacked up. Then the next one is another nice big space, 7.2m x 3.4m.
The house was very impressive too, so we go through the usual shenanigans and a few days later we are sale-agreed, and we come back to meet the owners and to have a second look. The husband is the woodworker, and needless to say we get on brilliantly. We walk around the workshop and he asks if we want various benches/cupboards to be left behind, then he takes us over to the woodstore and asks if we would like him to leave the contents… :shock: I manage to splutter out a ‘Yes, please’.
So you might think that things are going pretty well for me at this moment, but when we get home SWMBO and I talk about our various requirements - most pertinently, what building she is going to use as a studio. In an ideal world, she would like a studio away from the house, but we have an ‘impending arrival’ due shortly after we move \
/, and having a studio at home makes more sense for the immediate future. She needs somewhere pretty large, and of course the requirements of her career have to take precedence over my expensive, unproductive hobby :roll:. So unless I find another suitable building nearby, I’ll just have to make do with the 7.2m x 3.4m workshop , with the adjoining woodstore…still about a 400% increase on the size of my current workshop, but not quite the Nirvana that could have been :-({|= I'm still really excited about planning the new space from scratch, luckily SWMBO needs it too so it can be a big priority. ‘The Workshop Book’ is winging its way from Amazon as I type...
Cheers,
Neil
