Look on The Bright Side

September. So close, I was just waiting for my builder to finish his current job.  Rather than sit back I joined a local (40 minutes away) Gem Club.  It is made up of retired people mostly, who share their skills among members.  It amuses me that I'm considered one of the 'young ones' in my late 40s.  Primarily designed for stone cutting and faceting they built a 'silver room' for people who want to mount their work.  Perfect!  Why buy very expensive pieces of equipment, in the beginning anyway, when I can take my work to the club and make use of theirs.  Besides, just being at the club I'm surrounded by people who are thrilled that they can share their knowledge with you and visa versa (when I'm up to speed again).   All this provided motivation to keep pushing ahead with the laundry/bathroom conversion.

So here begins the impact on my family.  The club run children's classes as they want to hand down their skills to others.  My daughter (12)  sits around a gingham tablecloth every Friday being taught wire work by a wonderful woman who loves to teach, all for barely any cost to us.  My son (9) curious one week, joined us and within minutes was asked if he was there to cabochon.  With a blank look he meekly said yes having not the slightest idea what he'd just agreed to.  Five minutes later I walked into the 'cab' room to find him cutting stone on a circular saw.  All I could say when he emerged was "have you got all your fingers?" 

Honestly the look on their faces with tools in their hands was priceless.  To me it's all good time away from computers and screens. 

Having said that, we are a computer family, so while talking benches I got my builder to install a computer 'hub' for the children that brought their computing into the main living area.  This has been a significant improvement in the dynamics of how the family interact.  I really didn't foresee the impact it would have.  Simple things like the siblings talking to each other at the bench rather than "annoying" each other when the computers were in separate rooms.



 Skip ordered, all ready for demolition and we had an absolute ball:

Not only did the bathroom get demolished, we also took the skip opportunity to clear out the shed.  I've posted the after picture only...Yes, the before was that bad!  We can now easily get to our bikes which has encouraged the family to ride more.

Inspired by this video:  5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do, we deconstructed some of the rubbish before it went away and the result was my daughter wanting to save electronic parts for jewellery and my son announcing he wanted to be a blacksmith and make swords. 



It may seem a simple thing to most people but we are not DIY literate so it is a very rare thing for tools to be used in our household.  That's why even the process of getting a studio is so significant to me...I can see the changes and my tools aren't even out of their boxes yet!

And then...Problems with my builder's other job...Won't be able to do anymore work until March! 

All I could do was to look on the bright side and remind myself of the positives that had already happened.  I trust the builder so there was no option to look elsewhere.  I turned to the Gem Club who asked if I wanted to learn faceting.  Having not got a clue and with no other projects looming on my non existent bench I thought I had nothing to lose.  Here it is,

but don't look too closely or you'll see the extra facet that shouldn't be there!  When I came home with this my cred with the family soared!  My children know I make jewellery but they've never actually seen me do it.  They were babies when I studied in London.

So I have been biding my time and salivating over the Bench Exchange and The Jeweller's Bench Book. 

All the waiting came to an end a couple of weeks ago.  Now everything is happening so fast that I'm starting to get a little nervous!