On leaving college in 1982, I began my training in the construction industry. I worked my way up to running a large building company in West London and specialised in Heritage works including Hampton Court, Windsor Castle, Houses of Parliament and Lambeth Palace.
In 1985, I married my wife, Clare and we have two sons.
My wife and I have always enjoyed working together with a hands on approach to renovating our homes. We moved to the beautiful countryside of Lincolnshire in 2003 and have fully renovated a Georgian farmhouse using traditional building techniques.
When we moved we also started a business renovating houses for re-sale.
Soon after our silver wedding anniversary in 2010, Clare was diagnosed with cancer and she needed care throughout her treatment. It became obvious that our business had to be set aside. In the periods when Clare was needing less care, I started working at home in a purpose built workshop producing dovecotes (principally because we wanted one) and as Clare’s health improved, we extended the range due to requests and sales. We found that we could use our design skills and attention to detail and set up our business ‘Dovetails’.
The next product was the beehive storage units, again because we wanted a store to hide our water pumps which use well water to irrigate our garden. We are constantly adding to our range, beehive composters to compliment the storage units, obelisks, etc. We also build items to customer’s requirements and have recently made and installed a duck house.
All the timber used comes from FSC managed suppliers and wherever possible from the sawmill 200 yards away from our home. They in turn utilise their own woods to harvest the timber using traditional methods. Other timber supplies come from another small independent timber merchant about 5 miles away.
The paint finishes offered are Ronseal Woodland Trust Colours (supporting the protection of native woodland) or if a gloss finish is requested, water based primers and undercoats are used with a low VOC gloss.
Our youngest son, who is currently studying for a business and finance qualification at University, has been very enthusiastic about the process of setting up a new business and has designed and constructed our website.
