Building our skills

In a rather long and convoluted story, Kyle has recently commenced some woodworking courses having had an interest for quite a while. As part of one of these courses he was required to make a coffee table with two drawers (I'm not entirely sure why it had to have that specific quality, but I'm sure there was some reason). So one day he began a discussion along the lines of "what type of coffee table do you want". We discussed many factors, from the positioning of said drawers to what we we would put in the space underneath, to what type of wood it would be made from, and then to the all important colour. Kyle, you see, used to be a painter/decorator and has rather an eye for these things.

After a long search for an appropriate green, and some considerable experimentation with steel wool and vinegar, he had a lot of fun one afternoon watching it all come together.

I often end up discussing our housing project with people at work, usually just in passing. They're all very curious, but sometimes it can be difficult to convince everyone we meet that we can actually go through with this and end up with a space we can live in comfortably. This has always been something I've tended to take for granted - why on earth couldn't we do it? But the more I talk to people about it the more I realise that that attitude is entirely a result of my upbringing (thanks, Mum and Dad, you can say "I told you so" about now and feel well chuffed).

Kyle doesn't always share this blind faith in our abilities, but I'm confident (wouldn't I be?) that he'll come around. It seems so obvious to me that all this is possible and within our grasp. After all, between us we have so many skills, like woodworking, that will help us in that journey.

Even our cat, Plop, thought it was pretty cool when done.