TECHNICIANS INSIGHT
LIFE OUTSIDE THE LAB
FOLLOWING YOUR Dream
By Sean Thompson I Ashford Orthodontic Laboratory
I approached Sean Thompson – Director at Ashford Orthodontic Laboratory, to share a bit about his life outside of the lab. I was aware that Sean had an interest in the property market and I was so interested to hear more about his story. He clearly has a great business mind, and a wonderful family man to boot.
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arly in my working life as an apprentice Dental Technician in Jarrow, just before my first ever boss suffered his third and final heart attack, he told me ‘’always remember that family comes first, and that you go to work to provide the means to enjoy your life outside of work, so make it count for something’’ and those words have stuck with me to this day. It’s not until you have kids that you really start ‘counting the years’ as you celebrate their birthdays and as such are constantly reminded of how quickly they grow and the years pass. The best memories are made over those years with the family, and this really became my passion outside of work, spending as much time together as we could, forging memories that will last a lifetime.
to express their passion for watches, cars, fitness etc, that I actually realised that this should be an inspirational piece which will hopefully positively impact his readers, particularly in these difficult times for labs. I suppose the interest in property and property development came from years of watching programmes such as Homes under the hammer, DIY SOS etc, eventually expanding to overseas programmes on HGTV such as Love it or List it, Flip or Flop and Property Brothers etc. This led to saving up and buying a small 1 Bed apartment to renovate and rent out. Then a second one and so on, but the effort it took actually meant less time with the family, even though we’d bought our first Touring Caravan to enjoy the Northumberland coast and Lake District with the family and our dog ‘Tuffy, the WireHaired Fox Terrier’. I quickly realised as the kids were growing rapidly, that caravans are only so big, so I looked at a larger option such as a static caravan somewhere. This search led us to a second-hand lodge in Bowness on Windermere. ‘Woodside Lodge’ was fantastic and opened my eyes to the possibility of renting out the lodge when we couldn’t use it. Our friends and family also had the option of using it, and this was something that none of us could do with rental apartments.
As a family, quality holiday time was key to our time away from work, and as my other passion was property, it became apparent that combining the two would be a really beneficial hobby, if I could find a way to make this happen. When Matt (Editor of The Dental Technician Magazine) approached me to write ‘my story away from the lab’, I must admit to being reluctant in case it was perceived as some kind of ‘bragging’, which it definitely isn’t, but when Matt explained this as more of an inspirational article, and that other people will do the same
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Lake Windermere is popular all year round, regardless of the weather. Owning the lodge made me realise that rental flats really didn’t fit the bill. An opportunity presented to buy a plot right on the lake and site a brand-new lodge, so I went for it and sold the apartments. We now owned a second brand new lodge ‘Lakeshore Lodge’ that was right on the lakeshore, and as everybody wants a view of lake Windermere, it proved extremely popular, and we made great memories there, eventually buying a small boat also to further enjoy the lake. The benefit of this was that you could actually use your asset and rent it when you didn’t. I think the lesson learned here was that short term holiday lets, in the right location with year-round visitors, really did allow personal use whenever you wanted, and create a second income when you weren’t using them. As anybody who knows me will testify, I’m quite driven and passionate about most things, particularly Orthodontics and property. Having moved 12 times in my lifetime, and developed most of them in the process, the opportunity to get involved in a barn conversion overlooking Budle Bay in Northumberland was too good to overlook. We’d spent many weekends with the kids in the sand dunes of those beautiful Northumberland beaches, so the opportunity to design from scratch just meant we had to make it happen, and ‘The Warren’ became the venue for some more great
