Starting to shape up around here!
It snowed last night, just enough to cover everything and remind us that winter is just around the corner, and that I really have to put some effort into cutting and stacking a whole bunch of firewood ASAP.
Things have really been shaping up around here lately. We've been fortunate enough to have Jeff and Louise working here a couple of days a week and it's really making a difference. Louise has been sorting through my mounds of paperwork and invoices to get all of it into order in-between packing and shipping guns. Jeff is kind of like an elf: I turn my head for a moment and one of my half-completed projects is magically done! He's rearranged the tool room to be efficient for left-handed people (he and I are both Southpaws) and even finished up projects that I had forgotten that I'd started!
So far this fall, the collective "we" have finished the roof over our bedroom, installed a new thimble through the wall into the woodburning chimney, installed an antique wood/coal stove that came from Louise's Dad's cellar, made several trips to the dump and/or the "swap shop" with "stuff" from the garages, started work on a pig house, acquired a plow for my Jeep (free!!!) so we won't have to pay someone else to plow out the parking lot this winter, and so many other smaller projects that I can't type them all here.
The current project is to finish off the storage shed that will contain household "cold storage" stuff. It is being built pole-frame style and has a 4' high loft for off-season storage of the of the zillion or so tent poles that our marquee tents require. Most of the framing is done and maybe 75% of the sheathing, but the steel roofing is scheduled to arrive next week. More of the materials than I'd like to see were purchased, but some of it will be done with recycled materials. The project will be complete for around $800.
I've started doing the homework on expanding the front of the building to add on display space for our "museum", a small classroom area for firearm education classes, and a more logical entrance to the shop than the odd way it was built for the original owner of the building back in 1989. I've already discussed the project with the building inspector who took the time to come out here to check out the situation.
We'll be doing the building in phases: first the slab, then the framing of a deck for the second floor, then closing in underneath it to complete the shell. With the always uncertain weather here in New England, we need to think through each step in the process to be sure that we don't have walls torn open when winter decided to hit.
I've got several ideas for how to lay out the interior of the addition, but nothing concrete yet. Last week we went down to Brattleboro and picked up a 12 foot long antique glass-topped display cabinet that will have to be worked into the design. It will be a great thing to display our artifact collection in a chronologically linear fashion which will make them easier to understand.
We are already working on plans for the spring: native village stuff like wigwams, ranger hut, guest cabin/sugar house, etc. I've promised Wendy that I won't begin any of them until the current projects are done! Before any of it gets planned in any detail, we need to spend a day or two out there with surveyor's tapes and compasses to draw a decent map of the property to plan it all out properly. What a great adventure!
Things have really been shaping up around here lately. We've been fortunate enough to have Jeff and Louise working here a couple of days a week and it's really making a difference. Louise has been sorting through my mounds of paperwork and invoices to get all of it into order in-between packing and shipping guns. Jeff is kind of like an elf: I turn my head for a moment and one of my half-completed projects is magically done! He's rearranged the tool room to be efficient for left-handed people (he and I are both Southpaws) and even finished up projects that I had forgotten that I'd started!
So far this fall, the collective "we" have finished the roof over our bedroom, installed a new thimble through the wall into the woodburning chimney, installed an antique wood/coal stove that came from Louise's Dad's cellar, made several trips to the dump and/or the "swap shop" with "stuff" from the garages, started work on a pig house, acquired a plow for my Jeep (free!!!) so we won't have to pay someone else to plow out the parking lot this winter, and so many other smaller projects that I can't type them all here.
The current project is to finish off the storage shed that will contain household "cold storage" stuff. It is being built pole-frame style and has a 4' high loft for off-season storage of the of the zillion or so tent poles that our marquee tents require. Most of the framing is done and maybe 75% of the sheathing, but the steel roofing is scheduled to arrive next week. More of the materials than I'd like to see were purchased, but some of it will be done with recycled materials. The project will be complete for around $800.
I've started doing the homework on expanding the front of the building to add on display space for our "museum", a small classroom area for firearm education classes, and a more logical entrance to the shop than the odd way it was built for the original owner of the building back in 1989. I've already discussed the project with the building inspector who took the time to come out here to check out the situation.
We'll be doing the building in phases: first the slab, then the framing of a deck for the second floor, then closing in underneath it to complete the shell. With the always uncertain weather here in New England, we need to think through each step in the process to be sure that we don't have walls torn open when winter decided to hit.
I've got several ideas for how to lay out the interior of the addition, but nothing concrete yet. Last week we went down to Brattleboro and picked up a 12 foot long antique glass-topped display cabinet that will have to be worked into the design. It will be a great thing to display our artifact collection in a chronologically linear fashion which will make them easier to understand.
We are already working on plans for the spring: native village stuff like wigwams, ranger hut, guest cabin/sugar house, etc. I've promised Wendy that I won't begin any of them until the current projects are done! Before any of it gets planned in any detail, we need to spend a day or two out there with surveyor's tapes and compasses to draw a decent map of the property to plan it all out properly. What a great adventure!
posted by MVTCoPete | 3:27 PM
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