Building My Jewellery Lab
It’s been almost 2 years to the day since Richie and I finished building my experimental space together so I’ve been reminiscing over the pictures we took during the process and found more evidence than I needed showing what fools we are…anyway, it’s been a useful way to see how much we’ve achieved and a positive reminder that we can make progress.
My first workspace wasn’t an official one as such; perched at the end of the boy’s welding area wasn’t the ideal scenario for him or me and neither of us knew at that stage how or what would unfold. In those early days, before we could even imagine we might be building an extra workspace, I was mainly woodworking rather than metalworking, occasionally welding scraps into random shapes (that we would later repurpose as Christmas decorations) and generally getting in the way when there was real BSSB work to be done! I graduated to the tiny hovel that we used to call the office (although that definition was generous at best, owing to the broken roll top desk in there), which was also the kitchen, bathroom, stain prep area and heat bunker (a tiny oil radiator would be on for regular warm-up respites throughout the day). There was one (dim) light bulb, no windows, lots of damp mold and not a lot else.
We decided that, regardless of where my journey was about to take me, this thing we called an office needed an upgrade. So we smashed it to bits! Well, not right away…
A big clear out and rearrange began so that we could start to build another level to the workshop; this would house an actual office and mini workshop that we would insulate so that we could work comfortably on admin tasks, have somewhere clean to eat our lunch and provide a contained space for me to learn while being on hand to help out. Who knew that we could install an RSJ ourselves, build a floor, stud walling, roof and windows?! It was a challenge for sure but gave us some confidence that we might not be completely mad dreaming about building our own house one day…
The structure we made and furnished was almost entirely made from reclaim, repurposed, donated or offcut materials, not just because our budget was low, but also because being resourceful with what we have is part of our Womble nature. My dad even donated one of his vintage amps so that we could run a serious sound system and really make our space somewhere we wanted to work (we both still wish we had a louder one to drown out the noise of the planer!). It’s still fairly cold in the winter (and spring, and autumn, sometimes summer days too to be honest) but it’s ours and we built it.
My bench, then, and now. I wonder what it’ll look like in another few years…