Ellie, Scott and Wendy relaxing on what may be their last holiday for a while. Nov ‘02.

When I first told my family and friends that I was giving up my job to become a professional furniture maker they did not believe me. The second time I told them they became concerned for my mental state. This may have been because they remember the last thing I made – a toast rack in the third year at school. The toast rack is still going but there is more glue than wood (well I had to fill the gaps with something!). So to be honest I am not surprised by the reaction I have received, after all, the fifteen years since my last attempt at woodwork has been spent studying and persuading venture capitalists to put their money into ‘the next big thing’ – not something that particularly requires practical skills.

So why, at only 29 years old, would I want to give up a relatively lucrative career and a comfortable life in the home counties? Well, for me, it is all about self worth – anyone can (and almost everyone does) bluff their way through the corporate ranks. But I really want to do something that I can look back on with pride, self respect and the man on the street can appreciate.

Despite my lack of woodworking activity I have always admired wood and good craftsmanship. My mother used to carve as a hobby and my grandfather was a joiner. To be able to take a tree and turn it into a beautiful desk, chair or cabinet appeals to me and I hope will also provide a huge amount of satisfaction.

So how do you go about retraining from a well paid, soft handed, desk jockey to a professional furniture maker? I have decided to go on a one year fee-paying course that is designed around my existing skills (or lack thereof) to provide the grounding I need to set-up my own workshop. The course provides one-to-one tuition in a professional workshop and will deal with design, business and marketing aspects of furniture making as well as the technical knowledge and skills.

To my surprise there are actually a number of people offering these courses around the country. The one I have chosen is with Devon craftsman Michael Scott, an ex-Parnham college graduate and professional furniture designer-maker for over 15 years. Michael seems quite relaxed about the fact that I have no experience and has successfully trained complete novices like me before. This is encouraging since I’ll need to start earning a living within one year otherwise it’s back to the office to put dinner on the table for my family. I am extremely lucky in the fact that my wife is completely supportive of my career change. So supportive in fact that we shall give up our home in Berkshire and relocate to Devon, just one month after the arrival of our second child.

I will not start the course until the end of March but have already got my first task – to acquire a set of hand tools. This is a daunting prospect since at present I cannot even match the tool to its name let alone know whether what I’m buying is any good. My grandfather’s old tools have been handed down to me and although they look to be in pretty bad condition I’ll try and salvage what I can. It would be nice to use the same tools that my grandfather did over half a century ago.

For the rest of the tools I have a budget of £1,000. This budget must cover hand tools, a router, drill and miscellaneous items such as marking tools, clamps and respirator. £1,000 sounds like a lot but when you look at the equipment required it really doesn’t go far. I may have to have to buy second-hand to get the quality I want. This may not be such a bad thing since I have heard that the quality of steel used in chisels and planes was much better prior to the DIY boom. To get really good quality tools you must either have very deep pockets or acquire tools that were made when professional craftsmen outnumbered hobbyists.

In addition to my tools challenge I have started some background reading - James Krenov’s The Fine Art of Cabinet Making is my favourite so far. The scariest bit is that I am beginning to formulate some design ideas – scary because the creative side of my brain as been not been exercised since I played cops and robbers at school. What is it that they say? - “what is beautiful to one person is not necessarily beautiful to another”.

Until I actually start the course I will not truly know whether I am capable of making a career out of wood. At times the challenge is daunting but I am looking forward to it and am sure I’ll have fun.

In next month’s issue I’ll let you know what tools I finally purchased and how I get on in the first month of the course.