Building projects
Over the past week we have been working on fixing this place up in addition to getting a big order in and out as soon as possible.
We had almost everybody working this week. Jeff did a ton of prep work, Chester did some too, and Steven was introduced to it. Kristen started sewing hammerstalls and is cranking them out at a pretty good pace for a beginner. Louise came to pack one night. Kristen's 5 year old even got in on the act, sharing "special delivery" duties with Caleigh.
Special delivery is how Caleigh earns her allowance. Wendy's office is upstairs, and the shop is downstairs. Paperwork constantly needs to be shuttled up or down. Invoices come downstairs, the order is packed and weighed, then our copy of the invoice is sent back upstairs with the weight and dimensions written on it so Wendy can print out the UPS label, which in turn needs to come back down here. For each "special delivery", she earns a coin. I give her the choice of penny, nickel, dime or quarter and she knows enough to pick quarters most of the time.
When Chester and Steven were not doing shop work or packing, I put them to work doing some repair and pre-winter yard cleaning. I have a lot of work like that lined up for them. This week they finished off the bridge we built that goes from our bedroom to the woods. All that remains to be done is to finish the railing, but I'm not sure what I want it to look like yet. The fun part of me wants to make a rope railing, but the practical side of me wants to just use wood.
After that, I gave them hammers and set them to work dismantling the mound of plywood crates that the muskets come in. The plan is to salvage the plywood to sheathe outbuildings with and use the cleats as kindling. Later on, I'll have them start on a shed, a goat barn, and maybe a larger sized barn for general use. We'll want a shed for motorcycle storage too. With 9' pallets as framing and plywood sheathing, there is no end to the stuff you can build!
Yesterday I replaced the rotted door frame that leads to the shop from the outside. In the process, I lowered it a couple of inches which should make it easier to step in. During the warm weather, we use the sliding door by my office, but it tended to stick last winter when it got really cold. There is a step to get in through the "regular" door, but it didn't seem to be affected by the weather.
Click here to see a picture of the place on the day we stumbled onto it.
The door I just replaced is the white one. The slider I am talking about is the one under the little porch. We plan on closing in under the deck on the right to be able to weld and heat treat outside so as to minimise airborn soot etc. indoors. It's an oddly designed house, it was specifically built to be rock shop on the first floor and a residence on the second floor. The front door to the house part is in the back and the shop entrance is in the front.
Not to digress, but the white Mustang out front is Wendy's. A convertable was handy for hauling Long Lands to UPS back before we had a daily pickup account with them. Here's a picture from March of 2004 of our little Mustang in action.
The door and frame came from freecycle. We get a lot of building stuff from freecycle. Sitting out in the temporary shed is 14 bales of shingles. We've also got doors and windows stacked outside to use in several future project. Today I went over to Springfield and picked up a cast iron sink that we'll be installing down here in the shop so we won't have to go upstairs to wash up (and get yelled at by Wendy for tracking shop crud upstairs). Freecycle is a great thing, it has saved us THOUSANDS of dollars in building materials. We also got two wood stoves and gave away a bunch of stuff, including a wood lathe. We even got a kitten and a rabbit from it. Go to www.freecycle.org and look to see if there is a freecycle group in your area.
Much to do, winter is coming and soon all of the half-started outdoor projects are going to be covered in snow. OK, enough typing, time for dinner!
We had almost everybody working this week. Jeff did a ton of prep work, Chester did some too, and Steven was introduced to it. Kristen started sewing hammerstalls and is cranking them out at a pretty good pace for a beginner. Louise came to pack one night. Kristen's 5 year old even got in on the act, sharing "special delivery" duties with Caleigh.
Special delivery is how Caleigh earns her allowance. Wendy's office is upstairs, and the shop is downstairs. Paperwork constantly needs to be shuttled up or down. Invoices come downstairs, the order is packed and weighed, then our copy of the invoice is sent back upstairs with the weight and dimensions written on it so Wendy can print out the UPS label, which in turn needs to come back down here. For each "special delivery", she earns a coin. I give her the choice of penny, nickel, dime or quarter and she knows enough to pick quarters most of the time.
When Chester and Steven were not doing shop work or packing, I put them to work doing some repair and pre-winter yard cleaning. I have a lot of work like that lined up for them. This week they finished off the bridge we built that goes from our bedroom to the woods. All that remains to be done is to finish the railing, but I'm not sure what I want it to look like yet. The fun part of me wants to make a rope railing, but the practical side of me wants to just use wood.
After that, I gave them hammers and set them to work dismantling the mound of plywood crates that the muskets come in. The plan is to salvage the plywood to sheathe outbuildings with and use the cleats as kindling. Later on, I'll have them start on a shed, a goat barn, and maybe a larger sized barn for general use. We'll want a shed for motorcycle storage too. With 9' pallets as framing and plywood sheathing, there is no end to the stuff you can build!
Yesterday I replaced the rotted door frame that leads to the shop from the outside. In the process, I lowered it a couple of inches which should make it easier to step in. During the warm weather, we use the sliding door by my office, but it tended to stick last winter when it got really cold. There is a step to get in through the "regular" door, but it didn't seem to be affected by the weather.
Click here to see a picture of the place on the day we stumbled onto it.
The door I just replaced is the white one. The slider I am talking about is the one under the little porch. We plan on closing in under the deck on the right to be able to weld and heat treat outside so as to minimise airborn soot etc. indoors. It's an oddly designed house, it was specifically built to be rock shop on the first floor and a residence on the second floor. The front door to the house part is in the back and the shop entrance is in the front.
Not to digress, but the white Mustang out front is Wendy's. A convertable was handy for hauling Long Lands to UPS back before we had a daily pickup account with them. Here's a picture from March of 2004 of our little Mustang in action.
The door and frame came from freecycle. We get a lot of building stuff from freecycle. Sitting out in the temporary shed is 14 bales of shingles. We've also got doors and windows stacked outside to use in several future project. Today I went over to Springfield and picked up a cast iron sink that we'll be installing down here in the shop so we won't have to go upstairs to wash up (and get yelled at by Wendy for tracking shop crud upstairs). Freecycle is a great thing, it has saved us THOUSANDS of dollars in building materials. We also got two wood stoves and gave away a bunch of stuff, including a wood lathe. We even got a kitten and a rabbit from it. Go to www.freecycle.org and look to see if there is a freecycle group in your area.
Much to do, winter is coming and soon all of the half-started outdoor projects are going to be covered in snow. OK, enough typing, time for dinner!
posted by MVTCoPete | 10:28 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home