Trailer Trash.
I’ve spent the past week working from a caravan in the New Forest while my son does his work experience at a nearby golf course.
So, a few thoughts from the week for the weekend:
1. He’s learnt that working for someone can feel like being, and I quote, “a slave!” Mind you, the task of cleaning members’ balls raised a smile.
2. Speaking of work experience: If you have any children, relatives, or friends contemplating a career in architecture, advise them to look into salaries first. A 12-year-qualified architect in a senior position earns circa £42,000. That comes after 5 years at university, plus 2 years of low-paid work and exams. We used to moan about our pay in the early 2000s compared to similar professions. But even that looks good now. In my last salaried job in 2007, I earned £36,000 as an Associate – that’s £60,000 in today’s money.
3. I know money isn’t everything, blah, blah, blah. But, it kind of is. A painter and decorator earns more. And they kinda get to draw stuff. Plus, it’s easy to work for yourself, flexible hours, and definitely fewer hours. Hard on your knees, though.
4. Engineers think architects just colour stuff in anyway. I’ve heard this view many times during my 20 years in a Faculty of Engineering. It makes my blood boil just typing that. (Working hard to hold back a rant.)
5. Caravans are fantastic little homes. Why do we spend so much time building ‘real’ houses? Build a concrete base, poke up a drainage pipe and electric cable. Drive a house onto it. Connect it up. Move in. Leave a 6 metre gap (useful driveway and garden). Do it again. And again. And….
6. I’ve got a shop, gym, pool, pub all within a few hundred yards. I’m detached. I can sit in the sun. Lots of trees. Very little town planning interference once the overall development set-up is agreed upon. Heaven.
7. Although the total lack of phone signal and very poor wifi (the entire rear half of the van has zero signal) has us living in a “third-world country” according to our ‘slave’. Hell.
8. Turns out a 6m x 3.5m room is plenty large enough for an open-plan living space: a good-sized kitchen, dining table, large corner sofa, and TV.
9. The second bedroom is painfully small, but the rest is brilliant. Apart from being made of plastic. And the internal walls might as well be made with paper. In fact it’s so plastic and thin that it makes me cringe. But it might just last 25 years. Then order another one. Yeah, like cars, phones, blenders…
10. Speaking of holiday homes, I read this week that the bottom has fallen out of the second home market. This is good, some might say. There will be more homes in Cornwall for locals—in theory, at least.
11. I know. Let’s fill the country with trailer parks. It will fix everything.
Have a good weekend.
You will always find me at carl@carlarchitect.co.uk
This Week’s Links:
UK housing crisis: Could static-home parks offer a short-term reprieve?
The caravan park: Australia’s affordable home.
‘The stress is overwhelming’: the highs and lows of starting a new life in a static caravan.
17 best sofa beds for 2025.
Ultra Modern MOBILE HOME Unlike Anything I’ve Ever Seen!
I’ve had to resort to The Sun for this news story about the Castle hotel in Tintagle. No other national newspaper appears to have covered it. Perhaps it’s made up.
3-bed home – 2017 model – £15K
Or a brand new one – furnished – £53K
Trailer Trash by Caroles daughter.
Main Image credit: Welcome to the glamorous world of underpaid professions and luxury plastic living. (ChatGPT)
