Home Refurbishment.
I have spent my entire life as a builder completing Home refurbishment after Home refurbishment. From the moment I could speak or move my arms I declared that “I want to be a builder when I grow up” while making dents in my parents flooring sitting for hours with a hammer amusing myself as a baby.
Did I intend to be a builder no, I was more specific than that, I wanted to be a chippy (carpenter) and then I was going to be the boss! Building houses and refurbishing homes. So with this clear in my mind a practiced my hand skills building any Lego, Mecano or model imaginable, even using raw materials timber and bricks to build small houses in the garden.
I knew I wanted to be a builder all my life so of course at school I took up carpentry and technical drawing, skills you would need to become a carpenter and builder. I Left school and found recruitment with Lovell as an apprentice carpenter and joiner, completing City and Guilds then advance craft over four years.
I enjoyed a couple of years as an improver after completing my qualifications and apprentership, before the last big recession in 1991 when we got made redundant. This was daunting, working for Lovell around Beaconsfield, Gerard’s cross and the surrounding areas Home Refurbishing I was in a comfortable place with a team I had worked with for years that looked after me from a boy. We would work on a variety of type of project, while this was good experience it didn’t improve my speed to the standard of someone completing repetitive tasks like building houses one after the other.
At 21 this was a worry but I searched high and low to find a new position, it was difficult at first because know one had a long duration of work so I found lots of contractors to work for. I would travel all over the place mostly from High Wycombe into London and back every day, the dreaded M25! While most tradesmen where out of work I virtually never had anytime out of work. I went on to the Building sites, mostly Homes where the other guy’s took me under their wing and showed me how to speed up. I never looked back and if Lovell never made me redundant in 1991 I wouldn’t have had the push I needed to stand on my own two feet.
I then gained confidence and started to build a base of my own clients, helping people do home refurbishment, mostly carpentry then progressing with all the other trades. Finally I gained enough experience to start my own home Refurbishment Company but that’s another episode!
It was easier when I left school, most children that wanted to pursuit a career in Construction or Home Refurbishment could find a local builder or an apprentership to go and work with. Now it is very difficult for school leavers, it bother s me because we are not training anyone for the future for manual work. I hope the next government can help some way, companies do get grants for employing trainees but it still a long term financial risk with the un certain future in construction. Unfortunately I don’t have a solution either.
Author Matthew Austin. www.mattandglossinteriors.com
I have spent my entire life as a builder completing Home refurbishment after Home refurbishment. From the moment I could speak or move my arms I declared that “I want to be a builder when I grow up” while making dents in my parents flooring sitting for hours with a hammer amusing myself as a baby.
Did I intend to be a builder no, I was more specific than that, I wanted to be a chippy (carpenter) and then I was going to be the boss! Building houses and refurbishing homes. So with this clear in my mind a practiced my hand skills building any Lego, Mecano or model imaginable, even using raw materials timber and bricks to build small houses in the garden.
I knew I wanted to be a builder all my life so of course at school I took up carpentry and technical drawing, skills you would need to become a carpenter and builder. I Left school and found recruitment with Lovell as an apprentice carpenter and joiner, completing City and Guilds then advance craft over four years.
I enjoyed a couple of years as an improver after completing my qualifications and apprentership, before the last big recession in 1991 when we got made redundant. This was daunting, working for Lovell around Beaconsfield, Gerard’s cross and the surrounding areas Home Refurbishing I was in a comfortable place with a team I had worked with for years that looked after me from a boy. We would work on a variety of type of project, while this was good experience it didn’t improve my speed to the standard of someone completing repetitive tasks like building houses one after the other.
At 21 this was a worry but I searched high and low to find a new position, it was difficult at first because know one had a long duration of work so I found lots of contractors to work for. I would travel all over the place mostly from High Wycombe into London and back every day, the dreaded M25! While most tradesmen where out of work I virtually never had anytime out of work. I went on to the Building sites, mostly Homes where the other guy’s took me under their wing and showed me how to speed up. I never looked back and if Lovell never made me redundant in 1991 I wouldn’t have had the push I needed to stand on my own two feet.
I then gained confidence and started to build a base of my own clients, helping people do home refurbishment, mostly carpentry then progressing with all the other trades. Finally I gained enough experience to start my own home Refurbishment Company but that’s another episode!
It was easier when I left school, most children that wanted to pursuit a career in Construction or Home Refurbishment could find a local builder or an apprentership to go and work with. Now it is very difficult for school leavers, it bother s me because we are not training anyone for the future for manual work. I hope the next government can help some way, companies do get grants for employing trainees but it still a long term financial risk with the un certain future in construction. Unfortunately I don’t have a solution either.
Author Matthew Austin. www.mattandglossinteriors.com
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