It has taken many weeks and lots of upheaval but finally my new home office is finished.

We have an office in Wakefield and another in Leeds but I found even before the pandemic, I was using them less and less finding I could achieve much more at home with no commuting or distractions. But my home office was a conservatory, it was freezing in Winter and really hot in Summer. A couple of months ago we experienced 32 degrees for a few days, I could barely work for the heat. And I wasn't looking forward to another freezing Winter.

It was time to change. The old conservatory was emptied of years of office contents into a small dining room and work began on the demolition! Straight forward it may seem but following weeks of hot sunshine, the heavens opened and the rain came! Undeterred and on a tight timescale, the builders pressed on!

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I can sympathise with people who have been forced to work from home recently who don't have permanent space. Working on a dining room table surrounded by years of files and office equipment is not pleasant, in fact it's almost impossible!

After about a week, the doors and windows arrived and finally the building was made watertight.

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Then came the problems. Finding a plasterer! There was no plasterer available until October at the earlist and I was getting desperate. (Why is it so difficult to find tradespeople these days?) Fortunately one of the contracters fitting the windows had a brother who was a plasterer and he persauded him to come to my rescue!

The next problem arrived 20 minutes before the floor tiler was due. He called to cancel, said he was busy, running behind and not sure when he could come. TopicUK works on a strict deadline and it was becoming increasing more difficult to edit the magazine in such conditions. My local community website came to the rescue, someone recommended Matt in answer to my plea's and the floor was complete!

I finally moved in last week and I love it! Now what project can I work on next?