Well, we finally opened our shop last week on schedule and all of the months of preparation has finally paid off. If you have been keeping up with @kingdommetalworks on Instagram, you will see how our little town of Hampton has embraced us and welcomed us as their own.
We would like to thank our neighbors, Albert, Tony, Ted and Eric for their assistance in getting the machinery in the shop and bolted down…we could not have done it with out them. We even had family members come visit and lend us a hand in moving furniture, installing hardware in the home and working tirelessly on getting the shop ready to open on time….thank you Julian, Ivy, Jim and Deb for gifting us with your presence and skillful hands.
Because of the gift of love extended to us from family and new friends, we have completely settled into our new home here in Hampton. Our home is very quiet and peaceful out here in the rural countryside. We live on a little road surrounded by farms, cattle grazing on wide open pastures, country roads meandering through miles of woods and wide open skies. Our house sits on a little hill that looks out over about 7 acres to our barn a row of fruit trees and rolling hills as far as the eye can see. We have been told by our neighbor that when you come over the bridge at Smithland, it is as though you have gone back in time. I myself can’t really explain it, but it is true, time has almost stood still and nothing has really changed since I used to come to the town of Hampton and visited my grandmother when I was a young girl.
Life is much slower in the country and there are very few distractions except to stop what you are doing to watch the squirrels, birds, deer and fox come in and out of our yard. A normal weekday for us is to get up early with the help of the rooster crowing and have a simple breakfast before I go upstairs to my office and Kevin starts his day in the shop. Coffee break is at 10:30 where we sit at our dining room table and catch up on what we have done that morning. Kevin will use that time to return phone calls and catch up on emails. There are chores for me to do around the house as well and most every meal is prepared in our kitchen. Afternoon tea is at 3:30 and we assess our progress for the day. I will wander into the shop when I start to miss hanging out with Kevin and he will walk me through the steps he has taken on a particular job creating a panel describing how he will shape it and get it to look “just right”. I am always fascinated at how he can get a flat piece of cold hard metal to form to his desire as he cuts, bends, hammers and wheels the cut piece of metal to fit perfectly to the body of the automobile he is working on. It takes a lot of patience and skill…if you ask me, I think he is a master metal shaper.