For the next few weeks and months, I’ll be unable to turn anything. A while ago, Helen and I decided to move house and, after many hiccups and bends in the road, things are now finally starting to come together. In consequence, I have started to pack up my workshop. All my wood is already stowed in a horse box at Helen’s yard (and it’s quite a lot, filled a transit van about half), most tools are in boxes, lights are dismantled. Still plenty to go, though.
The new house isn’t all that much bigger than the current one, and it needs a complete overhaul. At the moment it’s a bit like a time warp from the sixties or seventies. It does however have a major advantage: at the bottom of the garden (or let’s say: the far end) there’s a proper brick built workshop spanning the entire width of the garden, about 30′ wide and about 8′ deep. Mind you, just like the house it’s in need of quite some TLC. The previous owners used it for sign painting, and it hasn’t seen any maintenance for about 20 years. There’s electrics, but it needs replacing. The furniture is probably only good for one thing: a big bonfire, with the exception of the radial arm saw which the current owners have agreed to leave for me.
Luckily, the new house is only about 1 mile from the current one, so the move shouldn’t be tricky. After all, both Helen and I have moved overseas several times, so this should be a walk in the park.
Getting a mortgage was anything but a walk in the park. After the crash of the housing market a couple of years ago, the mortgage lenders have gone completely doolally. There’s the usual stuff with a survey organized by them. Then they wanted endless paperwork to prove that the deposit did not come out of some money laundering scheme. And then they really got stuck in on the survey and insisted on a structural report. Once they had that, they wanted drilling of trial holes and deep ground inspection with estimates of fixing any possible issues. All of which costs money. Makes me think that this is all some sort of organized self-helping circus, where the property owners (current and future) are being milked until the udder is dry. No surprise then that young people find it difficult to get onto the property ladder, what with all the obstacles put in the way by the lenders.
I mean, who’s got £340k to buy that kind of property with cash? Really.
Anyways, we are almost there. So for the next few months, it’ll be general ramblings and musings, maybe with a few discussions about other artists I have seen and admire. We’ll see.