Crikey its been a while since I updated this thread. Quite a bit has been built since the last update, in between customers jobs, mucking about buying old Bedfords, playing with bicycle builds and general enjoying summer stuff. Now that its 'late summer' here in the Tasman region and its starting to get a little bit chillier in the evenings we have been cracking into the build so we can hopefully move out of the cabin before spring Autumn arrives. Our bay seems to have a bit of a micro climate and ignores winter here, going straight from autumn to spring and frankly its more nicerer that way :-)
I still want to be living in the shed though- its gonna be nicer all round and I might actually then do more work on the Imp 911!
So last time I posted we had sort of started the building of some walls upstairs. We got sick of the mess and clutter downstairs and once we had the wall up in the lounge we carted all the boxes of car/bike/workshop related stuff upstairs and stacked them in the lounge. Then we took down the old shelves that all that stuff had been on. Moved the washing machine, folder, guillotine out of the way, put more burly posts up and built the store room. I didn't really take any photos of the process but you can see it in this photo...
Its about 1.6m wide and spans half the workshop. Really good amount of space to store lots of boxes on some shelves we built up there.
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With all the stuff shifted up off the workshop floor we could now make the most of the extra space. We shuffled things around, measured, schemed, planned, deliberated and pondered the layout. Still wanted some shelves but not as big. We ended up with it looking like this...
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Much better. Really happy with that. Those shelves will soon get cluttered up with a variety of Nissan micra bits as we do that planned swapsies game.
Now back to work upstairs. Speaking of stairs...we got sick of clambering up and down from the lounge area using a step stool so we made these...
I built them to replicate the main stairway. We picked through the largest bits of pine we had and created some sweet steps. Really stoked with how they came up once varnished. There will be a handrail on the wall side to add in the future.
We bought some things. We've never had a new mattress. Time to splash out and get a decent one...
(another reason for wanting to shift outta the cabin asap- the cabin only has a double bed and it gets crampped when we have to share it with a big fluffy cat)
Also started hunting for chest of drawers etc. Found these slightly art deco styled ones cheap at the recycling centre - $40. Nicely built from solid Rimu. Hannah sanded them and varnished them...
We kept plodding away at the build. Annoying when we had to stop to do customers jobs but hey that's life. Walls and ceilings went up. Some free insulation from local friends. Hannah painted some of the walls. Yet to decide on other colours to be used.
Bought a nice second hand full HD projector and a new 130" motorised screen. We had deliberated about going the projector route or just get a large telly. Projector won and its amazing!
Installed the lovely large 'fill the room with deep smooth base' speakers we had been gifted. Made some burly speaker stands that replicate the posts holding the mezz up. Screwed them to the floor because earthquakes.. but also make sure nothing moves but the speaker cones.
Gawddamn its a mighty nice setup to watch movies in now- exactly what I have dreamed about. When I spot a 65" etc TV in the shops now they seem so tiny. Viewing a movie on a projector screen also seems much easier on my eyes than looking at a telly screen.
I added more circuits to the breaker box and ran out all the wiring before the walls went up. Always so fun to turn new lights on and have wall sockets to use rather then trailing extension cords. I have a local sparky mate who will be checking/signing it off etc when finished. Get all our bits at trade from him too- LOL at the markup on electrical stuff !!!
Pics...
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Spot the vent added in the top- without windows it was a bit hot up there. Vent works well! Need to make a pretty porthole window to cover it.
Some nice carpet will be laid on the lounge floor (oatmeal/Kevin coloured - bloody fluffy cats....)
I had posted up some pics in the shed thread of this happening a few days ago...
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Wow- I wish we had done that earlier on. We've had a window to fit in this spot for ages...
My brother had spotted it at the Blenheim recycling centre. $50!!! All cedar sashes and lovely Rimu frame, solid brass mechanisms. Couldn't believe our luck.
Hannah cleaned it up and painted the outside in dark 'Karaka' green to match the other windows/doors on the shed. Here in primer...
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We needed flashings. I didn't want to deal with the main Nelson crowd that we'd used and been mucked about with before. We had a load of brand new gutters that had been left in the bush by the previous land owner, still in the plastic wrap and in the exact same Karaka green we needed. So I decided to use them as material to make our own flashings. We needed a folder. So I built one...
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It folds 2.4 metres. No good for heavy steel but fine for shed steel, car steel. It will be a handy thing to have for future jobs so it made sense to but a little time/money into making one. It fits neatly onto a large mobile steel bench.
Made flashings and fitted windows. Then had coffee looking out into the bush...
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We will be chopping down heaps of the Kanuka trees we now look at- the block the evening sun that comes through the window and there lots of really nice ferns that we'd rather see come up.
So that's firewood sorted for another few years :-)
In the last few days we've been adding trim, making another bookshelf to mimic the one we'd made earlier on the other side of the lounge. Wanted some nice timber and found a large plank of what we thought to be old pine. Turns out it was Macrocarpa so that was a nice surprise...
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Finished that book shelf last night and Hannah varnished it this morning...
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We uncovered the remaining Rimu stacked outside and brought it up to the shed to process...
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Quite a large amount left. Most of it cleaned up nice...
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Now we are machining it down to a variety of shapes for trim, skirting boards, corner cappings, railings. We really need to make the bannisters before someone falls 2.4 metres to the concrete floor below.
Wow. Wall of text. I'll try to post up more often so its not such a mission to write/read. Really looking forward to fitting the kitchen/bedroom windows soon and then start building the respective rooms. Then we can move in. Then I can tinker with flat sixes till late and know my bed is only a flight of stairs away - not a cold walk up to a cabin.
Alex
I was never sure when I started the above thread on oldschool and then here if a bunch of 'petrol heads' would find it interesting but the response so far seems to be yes.
