Scott Brown here in this exciting episode we're gonna look at my time working in the
United Kingdom so this is a photo of my friend Josh and myself at Oakland Airport in 2012 and
we're about to go to the country that I was born in which is Scotland I was born just outside of
Edinburgh and done filming and I hadn't been there since I was 18 months old so josh is
also a carpenter and were being made since high school and where she did our apprenticeship sand
the same company as well how loose plan was to fly to the UK find a building job save money and
travel Europe and then fly home so all those years ago when my parents leave Scotland they
left behind aunties uncles even my grandparents are still there so one of the first things we
did was hop on a bus to Newton Moore up in the highlands and I visited my grandparents that was
super cool me and my grandfather stayed up till 3 in the morning watching old James Bond movies
together we went to football games castles but but we needed work now lucky for us while we
were in Edinburgh my uncle sandy let us stay at his house my uncle said he's a builder as
well he didn't quite have enough work to keep us going full-time but he had a few properties that
he was working on like this one this one here so it's a dick the house was already built but
we got to build that dick and one down the back as well and we built it a little different to
how I'm used to building it over here you're probably seeing on the channel we dig a hole
and then drop a post and put concrete around it but there we sort of dug a flat sort of scalp
out of the ground put a bit of mortar in it and then put a brick on it and then all the joists
went on top of it I remember doing it and Josh was like what are we doing this is primitive
we're using like boulders for a foundation you guys probably look at us putting timber
in the ground I think we're crazy and here's a front of me my uncle sandy leaning on the wall
is we're building the deck this was a really good time for us but the Europe trip that we had play
was drawing closer and closer and we didn't quite have enough work hours we needed a bit more money
the Gumtree ad reads something like this I need carpenters to finish my fetch cottage
on the Isle of Wight the good thing about this opportunity was that we could stay in the house
we were working on and then we could work as many hours as you wanted the owner lived in
London and we just sent him photos originally an old fetch cottage the owner had built two wings
off either end of it but he still had most of the internal work to do we started with oak flooring
machined out of railway sleepers and that kind of set the tone for the job the owner was also
an active and he had some unique ideas we would build a shelf out of MDF we've seen him a photo
if he didn't like it with demolisher if he did like it with the militia and then build
it again out of the material that he always wanted to build it out of everything that
we were building we were building at least twice I'm here with Josh Crampton right now
he's doing a bit of carpentry work so any hot tips for the viewers for the viewers
right right okay so I take it that's what's happened before what you're currently doing
that's another exciting episode of building with the boys tune in next week for how to
build a bar from scratch Josh did pretty well there to hold it together because it was very
frustrating we designed his entire kitchen this way though demolish and then build a
king it was demoralizing pulling your own work apart but we'll get paid by the hour were in a
beautiful part of England in a beautiful house and most importantly we were saving enough money
to travel around Europe see the Europe trip was a load of fun and by the end of it Jase and I had
got together here we are in London and I had a European passport but Jess didn't she had a one
year German visa and it was coming to an end so we had to return back to New Zealand this is the
part of the story where you see the beginning of this YouTube channel so two years of pass and the
2015 economy was a lot better it only took me two weeks to find work in Edinburgh I started working
for a company that specialized in high-end flats and the West End I worked for a few months and
got to know all the guys quite well I don't know what they thought of me but I really liked them
the foreman must elect me because I got us to set up a whole new job down the road oh
my so this is the time that I start setting up the camera to film myself
working this is the time I first try out a Japanese Hansel I would set up
my gut part in different corners of the job as I worked if anybody asks I just said I'm
filming for you know people back home so they can see what a tumor looks like
you know I got into a groove there I would open up a site each day some days I would
be by myself some days there were a few of us there I got to set up a track so
each day and cover up cool carpentry work from over a hundred years ago
Jess and I really loved our apartment to just point to where we live come on give it a bit
more detail for posterity yeah that could be fun he stayed right next to Portobello
beach and walked every week and we could just worked at the coffee roastery and
Portobello and she would walk to the beach on her lunch breaks life was good I could
walk to the bus stop take a 20-minute bus into the town and I'd be on a 300 year old
building covering up beautiful copper to work and listening to very funny Scottish people
another thing we're doing these so behind here believe it or not is a door like a proper
full-on mortise and tenon door all bandaged up and everything and we're screwed it shut
and then we'll put that board there phones it all that now we block this as if it was never
there is when we go out into the hallway the door looks as if it's an actual door
I'd been building for 10 to 12 years at this point and the next step for me was to start
my own business my best shot at that was back in New Zealand and just was coming to the end
of another visa so our immediate families are back in New Zealand we had to go back
it wasn't fun saying goodbye but we had to do it so you think we're done all right Johnny
I'm gonna miss you so much
it wasn't just the apartment that we were saying goodbye to it was the little life that we've built
you know four and a half years earlier I got to Edinburgh and slipped on my relatives couches
and now I had this little life with Jess and this apartment in Portobello and we were saying goodbye
to that I've got another uncle who's a carpenter over in Scotland Bob Brown have you made a bob
brown ask him what his favorite Fisto tours that of get him guy so Uncle Bob and my auntie drove
us up to the highlands to see my grandparents that actually turned out to be the last time
I saw my grandfather he passed away last year so I'm really glad we went out there to say goodbye
she does over Sydney inches each of Stuckey's Lisa so before we lift we win and so on coos
Andy again on his latest project he was working on a house that he had bought when Josh and I
first arrived and when we arrived he was telling us all the plans he had for it and Jess and I went
and had a look at what he does so far it turned out to be quite a lie but he was nearly there
I learned a lot I learned so much in that time even just the way I cannot business and the way
I my outlook and everything has been affected by my time in Edinburgh if you're still here thanks
for watching and I'll see you guys in the next episode hopefully I'll be doing some carpentry
we are just moving from level 4 to level 3 and lockdown so there might be highly likely