New "Century Bombers" Head Quarters - February 24th
A New House, Garage and Workshop

In the Autumn of 2020, almost on a whim, we went from ordering a new kitchen, to deciding to move house. Finding a house with enough storage and parking for two normal cars, three military vehicles, two trailers, somewhere for a workshop, a good view of the Southern sky for my astronomy, in addition to the usual things like schools and a home office; was a challenge. We spotted a property in Durham on the last day of October and got a viewing early November, placing an offer the same day. Christmas holidays and covid have slowed the process, but by late February, we completed. We still own our current house at present, 'though it is on the market. To save money and avoid unnecessary people contact, we decided to move everything ourselves with my aircraft trailer. As a result, the move and workshop strip out and rebuild would be spread over a few weeks. I've been packing the contents of the workshop for a while, but not so much in the house. A few house things were boxed, but we couldn't do too much as we were trying to keep the house presentable for viewings. PREPARATION - February 21st On Sunday 21st, I started preparing things for the move. Having things boxed ready to go was both a help and hindrance. We had boxes everywhere, both full and empty. A number of empty boxes were piled on top of the Ford, but were moved to the workshop. This allowed some other more Jeep related stuff to go in the GPW.

One of the first trips would be Lynne in a normal car with kitchen contents and me with "Jessie" and the Roset trailer. So the trailer was emptied of things like the camo net, ridge tent and signals square and filled with a dining room table, study desk and bedding. The workshop was organised chaos, as can be seen below, but lots of the workshop contents are already boxed and ready to go.

AIRCRAFT The large aircraft trailer had all the stuff removed that would rattle around, leaving the B-17G Fortress, my P-47N Thunderbolt and my late father's N scale model railway, plus a few boxes. Once moved, they would be stored in the new garage and would remain there until the move was completed. That would leave the trailer free for moving everything else. The rest of my sports sized models will be moved at a later date, possibly after I've sorted the shelving in the new garage.
		We still have quite a lot of stuff that we boxed up while clearing my dad's house. Due to covid, all the car boot sale venues are closed, so all the stuff we planned to sell, has been piled up in every available space around the Washington house, until we can get rid of it. This is one of the reasons we've been short of space for our own boxed stuff. The model railway needs a little tidying up before selling and we'll store the other stuff in a spare room until the car boot sales open up again. Both Jeeps would be moved straight away. This would leave the garage empty, making it easier to move the workshop contents through to load into the aircraft trailer. It would also allow me to clear all the camping stuff and 1940's kit out of the garage, which in turn would allow me to strip out all the shelving. These shelves and the workshop benches and units would all be rebuilt at the new house.
THE BIG DAY - February 24th We found out the owners were going to wait at the house to hand us the keys, rather than us collecting the keys from the agent. This meant we could drive across in convoy, me with the M201 and Lynne with the normal car towing the B-17 trailer. It was around a 12 mile drive via the back roads through Houghton-le-Spring. I always try to avoid motorways if I can, as I don't feel safe with other drivers travelling well over the speed limit. Most of the trip to Durham was on 30mph limit roads. I put a couple of small cameras on the Jeep to capture some images of the trip. The garage door is just tall enough for the Jeep with the roof up. It won't be tall enough for the "Follow Me" light box, so I may have to raise both garage doors.


The following day, we started bringing the workshop contents across and also the GPW. Everything was parked up in the garage. Some of the workshop units will probably be kept in the garage until they are fitted into the new workshop. I need to lay a wood floor over the proper floor to protect it.

The new garage is a large separate building, with almost double the floor space of my current garage. I need to get some builders in asap to raise one door lintel and fit a new door. This will allow the Dodge to fit inside. Originally we planned to move the shipping container, but can't get a HIAB truck down the drive. The new garage should fit all three vehicles along with the Jeep trailer, with shelving across the back for our camping gear and 1940's accessories.
I'll probably bring the Dodge to the new property before the building work is done to confirm heights and widths of the door opening.

There's a large annex on the back of the house which will become my new workshop. It's a bit bigger than my existing workshop and the different shaped room gives me the opportunity to redesign a few things to make some processes easier. It's the closest part of the house to the garage and with patio doors, should be easy to get any larger jobs in and out.
I'm moving all the cupboards and benches from the old workshop and should be able to reuse everything in the new layout.

The workshop will have four work areas in addition to a good amount of floor space. In the plan above, working clockwise, starting from the bottom, is my main work bench. At the 9 O'Clock poistion is the woodworking machines, scrollsaw, disc/belt sander and bandsaw. At the top is the metalwork area, with the bench grinder, lathe and pillar drill/cross vice. Just to the right of that is the resin/paint curing cabinet and spray booth next to the doors. In the cupboard by the entrance door, I'll have a model display area and a mini photo studio.

In the mean time, there's plenty to do. We have the workshop and garage to fit out, the garden needs cutting back, plus some new wardrobes fitting and an office making in the house. After that there's the trailerport and observatory.