Our beautiful old barn, over 100 years old with fascinating architecture and beautiful weathered wood.I took half of it and converted it to a small studio for my artist wife's work.

January,2003, the special (expensive) chimney system failed and the building caught fire. Insured for full value with a leading Swedish insurer after they had visited and recommended what insurance we should have, their definition of 'full value' ended up losing us a lot of money.

So, we rebuild.In 53 weeks and using over 50 cubic metres of concrete and a lot, a lot, of timber and even installing a heating system with a 150 metre deep borehole that takes heat from down in the earth.The 'heat exchanger' is a Nibe system and has been amazingly reliable (running for 17 years at the time of writing this in 2021 and hardly ever a problem with the system.no major problem)

Never easy to decide what to give your wife as a 'thank you' for 25 years of happy marriage.But for a very productive textile artist, another studio is always handy.