Is the Office Building Finished?

/ moragnoffke

After my post, Derek works on Groundworks for his new office: some of you might be wondering: what has Derek been up to? And has he finished building his office space?

First of all I will explain what his day at work looks like. He starts work just after 8am and works until 9pm at night. You must be thinking: ’that can’t be right, how could he be building his office and doing his renovations at the same time as running his business? When does he sleep?’

His client reach is all across the world: America, Canada, Middle East, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea to name many of the countries where he has clients. He also has employees in New Zealand and partners in America.  That means if he wants meaningful contact with clients, sales reps and employees he needs to be available for a lot of the day to accommodate the different time zones. He also works on the weekends trouble shooting programs connected to buildings because that is the best time for testing when no-one is in the buildings.

Fortunately one of his major strengths is flexibility, and one of my major strengths is organization. This could be a potential stumbling block in our relationship but we have learnt to work well with each other.  The way we have organized his building activities is to use the quieter slots in the morning and also any free time that hasn’t been booked by clients and technicians.  Derek has our Daughter S working as his marketing manager and also runs the office. This means between Daughter S and myself we can liaise and see that Derek is where he is supposed to be. Most times it works well but maybe you can see why sometimes I have felt that life is very chaotic.

In order to construct the office building Derek took ‘leave’ but he could still be seen in the office everyday doing routine admin. His leave was approximately two weeks long but it did stretch a bit as we had weather issues. Here in Scotland it rains quite a lot so he landed up in office when he couldn’t work outside. A lot of juggling happened and it is great that Derek likes a challenge and deals well with change.  

The short answer is ‘No’ the building is not ready for Derek to move into and so he continues to conduct his business from the lounge but we are much closer to finishing. The structure is up, it has its roof and it has been waterproofed. The underfloor heating still needs to be done before he can move in. We have all the components so we could get on with it but the floorboards got delivered in the rain and are completely sodden therefore we will be waiting for them to dry out before the floor is completed.

We have come to an important decision: NO MORE MAJOR RENOVATIONS (please all applaud and cheer – I am so happy). We had seriously toyed with the notion of opening up between the sun-room and the kitchen but we have finally settled in our minds, as a couple, we agree it is not worth doing from a time, energy and money point of view. This means we can finally finish the underfloor heating and add more insulation in the sun-room. The kitchen can get a facelift later. This is a massive relief. It actually means we can get on with living and doing other interesting things together.

We experienced a disastrous event during the assembly stage of the building which I will tell you about next time when I have finished putting the video together.

Have a lovely day and take care,

Morag Noffke

21 thoughts on “Is the Office Building Finished?”

  1. Applauding from across the pond! Here’s hoping things get wrapped up soon. 🙂

    And, for what it’s worth, it sounds like your family is a well-oiled machine, keeping things moving along without a hitch (or, at least very few hitches!).

    Oh, and underfloor heating sounds fantastic!

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    • 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣 thank you, I think I can hear the applause. And thank you too for your kind comment and observation of our family. Yes underfloor heating is not a thing in South Africa but we decided as South Africans in a cold climate it’s a must. Derek is an engineer who specialised in heat engineering so that’s his forte.

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  4. Applauding and cheering too, Morag, …(👏📣)… ‘tis great to have an update, and yes, energy and money counts for a lot, …and It’s so important to have ‘time out’ …looking forward to the video etc, ….meanwhile enjoy the rest of your Thursday, my friend, …💙🤗

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  6. Your story feels so alive—it’s not just about building an office but about building rhythm, patience, and connection within a family. I love how you turn everyday chaos into a portrait of teamwork and gentle humor. It’s warm and inspiring.

    Something that struck me is how your narrative subtly mirrors project management in life itself—planning, adapting, waiting for things (or people) to “dry out” before moving forward. It’s such a beautiful metaphor for maturity and the quiet wisdom that comes from real partnership.

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