Moving On

I have finally showed off my laundry room…

…and the living room…

…and the workshop.

Is there a reason for this sudden burst of sharing, you ask?

Well, yes, there is.

Remember when we were trying to sell our home last fall?  And then in the spring we decided it was not the right time?

Everything happens for a reason.

You see, my husband was recently offered his dream job in Seattle.

So we’re moving.

For real this time!

So if I’m a little MIA, you’ll understand.  I’ve been spending a lot of time getting our home ready to sell.  Is it breaking my heart to leave, after all the improvements we’ve made this year…especially my beautiful workshop? 

Yes!

But is it exciting to think of a new adventure, a new home, new projects, and most importantly…a happy husband??

Yes, to that as well!

Wish us luck!

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The Workshop, Part 5

In case you missed the previous entries:

• Workshop, Part 1
• Workshop, Part 2
• Workshop, Part 3
• Workshop, Part 4

It’s been a long, long time since I posted anything about the workshop.  I have been enjoying it, though! 

When last I left you, I showed the freshly painted interior…next step was to fill it up!

And fill it up…we did!

My good friend and neighbor Michael J., who is often my co-conspirator in the big projects, reached an agreement with me.  I had space and no tools.  He had tools and no space.  So we decided to combine forces and make the workshop “ours!”   Between the two of us, this is what we came up with.

See all these great tools on this wall??  Yeah, none of them are mine!   OK, the air compressor is…but I have certainly enjoyed using them!  (In the corner is a dust collector, with my air compressor in front of it.  On the left of that is a band saw, and left of that is the most awesome table saw.)

Next we come to my paint corner, with eleventy-twelve cans of paint!  There are shelves sized to hold spray paint, sample pots, quarts, and gallons.  They go up so high I have to use the ladder to get to the top shelves!  Oh, it just makes me giddy!  And underneath, there is a rolling cart with a scroll saw on it.  That is mine (I bought it from Michael J.), but I’ve never used it.   But I can start anytime I want to!!

See those two big sheets of peg board?  They make me giddy too!  For you see…

You can open one side…

…or both, and access tons of hide-away storage!  Isn’t it beautiful??

This is one of Michael’s brain-children.  He built a unit like this in his garage, and I fell in love with it!

Moving on, we have a lathe, which I have used once and can’t wait to try again sometime.  Then there’s a nice big workbench, which we literally rolled down the middle of the street on casters (from Michael’s garage to my workshop) to get here.  I’m sure it was a funny sight!

I love all the pegboad for holding small tools, and there’s a magnet board just above the lathe.  I store stains on the shelf up-top, as you aren’t supposed to store paint and stain too near each other.

I have a utility sink in here, although it’s never been hooked up properly.  When Michael hooked it up, it leaked a little.  After I tried to fix it, it leaked A LOT!  And we’ve never gotten back to it since.  The drill press in the corner?  Yeah, it’s not mine!

You may be able to see out the open garage door that the concrete apron has finally been poured!  It only took three months, but it’s gorgeous now.

The only thing left to do to the exterior is to paint it, but I honestly don’t know that that will happen this fall.  It’s not the painting that intimidates me…it’s all the caulking! 

Anybody wanna come help??

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This project has been featured at the All-Star Block Party.

 

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Linking up here:

	Elizabeth & Co.
Friday Remodelaholic	2805
My Simple Home Life’s Simple Creations Friday
Funky Junk’s Saturday Night Special	The DIY Show Off
Beyond the Picket Fence
	My Repurposed Life
From My Front Porch to Yours	All Star Block Party A Little Knick Knack
Cowgirl Up!	{aka} design

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The Workshop, part 4

           In case you missed the previous entries:

• Workshop, Part 1
• Workshop, Part 2
• Workshop, Part 3

Welcome back!  If you’ve stuck with me through this whole workshop project, you are indeed a faithful friend!

When last I left you, the outside of my new workshop was basically finished, with the exception of the paint (waiting until cooler weather) and some more concrete (waiting until the end of the month).

 

So what’s left…

…oh, yeah…the INSIDE!

Yes, those 9-foot walls…

…and that 13 1/2'-foot ceiling (whose idea was that, anyway?)

So I got to learn a new skill!  Mudding, and taping, and mudding, and sanding, and mudding, and sanding, and mudding, and sanding…ad nauseum!  (I still maintain that that means…until you’re nauseous.)

Let’s just say I learned a lot in the process.  If you look closely at the north wall of the shop (where I started), you’ll see…

….oh, forget it.  Just don’t look!

Had to rent a scaffold to reach that ceiling.  Doesn’t it look like that shop vac is enjoying moving up in the world??

  

Love how it looks like I’m wearing a long white glove here.  Very elegant!

We decided to texture the ceiling rather than try to make it look smooth.  I had NO IDEA how much mud that would take!

First you slop it on a palette… (I understand that some professionals can make things like roses and butterflies.  No, I didn’t even try!)

…then you squash it on the ceiling.

This is my partner-in-crime, Michael J.  He took a squeegee-thingy and knocked down the excess mud.  It’s a dirty job, but…well, you know the rest!   

Again, I understand that professionals can actually make a repeating pattern with the mud.  Ours has a pattern, really!  We call it… “chaos.”

There came a point at which I decided I was DONE with the whole mudding/sanding routine. 

After all, I told myself, “IT’S A SHOP!”

And myself answered, “Well, then paint it and be done with it!”

So I did  ;-)

Thank goodness for long-handled-extension-roller-thingies; they made the job a lot easier.

…but I still ended up with paint in my hair.  And eyes (ouch!).  And everywhere else!

But oh, look how much nicer it is even with just primer!

OK, OK, I’ll skip to the end!  There’s nothing too exciting about watching paint dry!

Here it is all painted.  Yep, the ceiling is BLUE!  I’ve seen pictures of blue porch ceilings and loved them.  Well, I don’t have a porch, so I had to make-do with the shop!

It’s a little quirky, but it makes me smile.

And see, I trimmed the window, too!

More to come…but we’re getting close!

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The Workshop, part 3

A few patient friends have expressed interest in seeing the workshop progress…so at long last, here are some more pictures for you!  If you missed Part 1, click here.  For Part 2, click here.

The last picture I left you with was this one…the structure was basically complete, except there were no shingles on the roof.  And just so you know…I helped put the tar paper on the roof!  It gets HOT up there!

One of the next things we tackled (“we” meaning my good friend Michael J. and myself) was to finish putting the exterior trim up.  As I mentioned before, we used Hardie cement/fiber siding to cover the building.  They sell 5 1/2” matching “battens,” but that was wider than I wanted to use (except on the corners), so we ripped each batten in half (you need a GOOD table saw and a carbide blade to do this).

Here’s the before…

…and here’s the after!  It has a lot more character, don’t you think?

Around this same time, I hired professional roofers to come finish the shingling.  I decided it was not something for a rank amateur to tackle!

Can you guess why this is such a sad picture?  Well, that is as far as the crane would stretch!  They couldn’t put the pallet of shingles directly on the roof, so the poor guys had to huff them up the ladder under their own power.

Trust me on this…packages of shingle are monstrously heavy!

But isn’t it looking pretty??

One thing to note…we had originally purchased shingles from Lowe’s with the idea that my contractor friend would install them.  When he had to leave before that happened, I called a roofing company.  Their price for shingles was significantly better, which helped to pay for the metal sheeting on the soffit…

…and the facia…

…so I think it worked out well in the end!  It means a lot less exterior painting, now and forever!

Another exterior project that had to be done was to pour a concrete “landing” outside the man-door.  Apparently it is part of the building code.  Who knew? 

So we (this is Michael J. and I again) built a form out of some scrap wood…

…filled it with some leftover gravel, and even a little rebar (it was on sale).

Here’s the gratuitous shot of concrete drying.  And here’s another word of advice…DON’T trust the on-line concrete calculators that are supposed to tell you how many bags of reddi-mix you need!  Buy twice as much.  It will save you a frantic trip to Lowe’s in the middle of lunchtime traffic!

Don’t laugh…but I had to autograph it!

So the exterior of the shop is basically complete.  We still need to pour a concrete pad outside the garage door, and a sidewalk to connect it to the front of the house.  That is hopefully going to happen later this month! 

And I haven’t tackled the exterior caulking and painting yet.  Anybody want to come help me with that?

Except…I did have to paint the door. 

                           

Naturally, it had to be red!  

Yes…there’s still more to come!  Next time…the interior!

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The Workshop, part 2

If you missed part 1, you can find it here.

After the plywood was on the roof, we concentrated on placing electrical boxes (all four-feet high for easy access)….

…light boxes (two inside; three outside)…

…and putting up more siding.

We used Hardi-ply siding, which is monstrously heavy and smells like fireworks when you cut it. Just thought you’d like to know.

We weren’t quite done with the roof, either.  The building inspector said we had to put hurricane clips on each truss (yes, I know Utah is not exactly riddled with hurricanes).  Each hurricane clip takes 10-nails, all hand-driven.  I think Ian did 12 in the time it took me to do six.  I told him I hoped he appreciated the minutes of time I saved him!

Plus we put “collar ties” across the roof as well (those are the horizontal boards you see just below the peak).  Let the wind blow!  Just kidding, Mother Nature.

Then there was insulation, and sheetrock—sheetrocking the ceiling was a nightmare—and here I am providing the important function of holding the sheetrock up…

Ooh, look!  It’s starting to look like a real building!

More to come!

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