Heavenly Beverley : The Metamorphosis of a Man Cave.

Having started the day mild and sunny, the weather has descended back to skittish and unpredictable - blustery and cloudy with the occasional burst of rain. Still not indicative of spring yet. A very good afternoon to be indoors.

We were delighted to welcome Bob Johnson for a fleeting visit to the East End Gallery. Driving a campervan up from the Big Smoke, companion Rachel in the front, along with champagne and cheese, Bob, larger than life, entertained us for an hour or so.

Bob and Michael are kindred spirits in many ways. Both are highly intelligent, with constant overriding anxiety, an ability to absorb others' emotions and difficulty with filtering the excess information that is flying around them. They react in very similar ways - a need to retreat from the hordes, quieten their minds and bring their anxiety back to a manageable level.

For Bob, this may translate in becoming house bound. For Michael, he has his familiar haven behind the Gallery - his beloved workshop. Escaping from the noise and pressures of the universe is now available to Michael, a place to call his own that he has been lacking since we moved to Beverley.

The original space was like rolling back the boulder to Jesus' tomb on the Third Day to peek inside. Except if there had been a boulder across the workshop's entry, we might have felt tempted then and there to replace the rock back in place. And then run.

In short, the ninety square metres behind the Gallery was a hovel, a disaster and a dive with all the charm of the black hole of Calcutta. Hot as Hades in summer, colder than a brass monkey's in winter, draughty with a seized roller door, dodgy floorboards, and a leaking roof, not to mention various partitions that extended from the old residence, this part of the building had no redeeming features whatsoever. At least it couldn't go downhill any further.

The original renovation to improve its climatic extremes was carried out over four months in the later months of 2014. We laid a concrete floor with plumbing that was connected to the main sewerage pipe, insulated the roof and added a ceiling of one-hundred-year-old corrugated iron sheets from Gwambagine Homestead. A complete rewire banished the dingy darkness, the partitions were demolished, most doors to the remains of the old house were bricked in and the thirteen-metre-long east tin wall was insulated and then covered with a handsome veneer of hand-made, air-dried bricks sourced from an old backpackers building.

Even so, the workshop had yet to receive its soul. Michael had to throw himself back into the renovation of Shop Four, which was to be resurrected as our main Gallery. This back-breaking, frustrating and tedious job took another fourteen months, during which Michael utterly lost his renovating sense of humour.

The miracle finally occurred. We opened the entirety of the East End Gallery on 19 March. Now was Michael's opportunity to claim the workshop. Except it wasn't quite as simple as that. In dribs and drabs, we had been carting the tools of his trade from the House that Rocks to his workshop. With the Gallery finished, he urgently needed to create. And this Michael did, at a pretty frenzied pace, over the next five months.

The majority of twenty years of fossicking was still in the sheds at home. This all needed to be shifted into the workshop. However, the task was so huge that Michael fled in mind and body every time he considered Where to Begin.

Salvation arrived in the form of Loic and Manon at the end of August. Initially, Michael's anxiety hit the roof and he resisted any suggestion of commencing the Great Move of Materials. After calming down, he recognised that the kids were a gift from God and we should take full advantage of them. And the show commenced.

Three weeks later, having organised and sorted the workshop with Michael, carried out massive amounts of weeding and whipper snipping, collecting firewood, helping with housework and generally doing anything we asked them, Loic and Manon spread their wings and set off for wildflower picking in the Northern Wheatbelt.

Their lasting legacy is the workshop now has its heart restored. The space bulges with Michael's treasure chest of metal objects. History exists on every shelf and in every container. All his work benches are in place. Davros has his own nook. Bottles of bolts and tacks and screws and nails are within his reach. Other tools are neatly organised. And for the first time in the best part of ten years, Michael knows his workshop and its contents.

He is currently working on an art piece which has the sides of a 1903 ore wagon as the superstructure. Loic assisted Michael welding the parts together on the kids' final afternoon with us. Michael is now constructing "shelves" of horseshoes and miners' boot heels in a circular pattern. In time, she will need a name that reflects her historical origins. Perhaps a title with a French twist thrown in to honour Loic and Manon's efforts as well.

Michael is recovering well from the stent surgery. Unfortunately, he has picked up a chest infection and is taking the usual atom bomb antibiotics. So, he needs to take life a little slower for a few days to defeat this bug.

Then, when he is ready, his workshop will be waiting for him.