Hello All,

today (05-02-2004) I discovered the "bio" at the oldtools list 
(Porch?). Here is my bio, don't know how interesting it is though and 
I'll try to keep it short.

0 - 26
Born in The Netherlands in '69. Went to primary and secondary school 
in a small town called Schagen, somewhere 50 miles north of Amsterdam 
(North-Holland). After finishing here must have been a year of doing 
some small jobs and I visited evening school but 1 year later I was 
definitely at the art school in Rotterdam. They kicked me out within 
the first 'cause my projects were a bit to rebellious (should follow 
as a sheep was what I got to hear...) After art school I spent some 
years doing whatever was needed to survive (working in the fields, 
antique business, moving,..). This lasted about a year after which I 
went to the Rietveld academy in Amsterdam. A short marriage resulted 
in the birth of a wonderful daughter. The Rietveld was enormous fun 
and except for the first year I spent their my days from 9am till 
10pm. Studied industrial design but couldn't finish as...

26 - now
I went to London for a summer course at RCA (Royal College of Art) to 
learn something about vernacular furniture. In August 1995 I moved to 
Finland, Helsinki to be precise as the result of meeting a wonderful 
lady, Leena, in London. We're now married and together we have 2 
children. We live in an old wooden vicarage (Vanha Pappila) in 
Hattula where Leena runs a small interior design company and I keep 
my clients busy as a branding & corporate ID and product development 
consultant. This description of what I do I hate most as it sounds 
either completely meaningless or very cocky or both... it's up to you 
to decide :-) What I like about my work is the communication and 
visual aspects and helping others to develop new products. It happens 
to be that the products I help them with are mainly tools to be used 
by professionals so no toothbrushes or pots and pans.

As said, we live and work in an old house. Still loads of renovation 
is needed and although we could hire (if we could find them cheap 
enough) carpenters to do the work for us, but why not give it a try 
ourselves? The most essential changes have been done by professionals 
(Leena's father and her cousin), we now should do the finishing:
- replace the ugly office doors for old solid pine doors with nice mouldings
- make all the skirting boards, trims, and so forth
- add some cup boards
- do parts of the kitchen (we buy old chests, cupboards,...) and 
build a fitted (? fixed) sink unit
- painting, waxing and oiling
- who know what more

of course we still have the garden ;-)

In all, much to do and when it comes to hand tools and how to work 
them, very much to learn still.

Best regards,

Jeroen Carelse