the power of craiglist & a library card

I have to admit, things have been pretty slow here in the studio - I'm dealing with the struggle of the juggle.  I seemed to have lost my flow in the last few months. I'm working on getting it going again, but first we have to wrap up some major projects.  The main one being this giant workshop!

To be honest, this has been tough.  We lost most of our project savings in the big "stock crash" of 2008 (ouch!) so in order to keep the dream alive we had to resort to doing every single aspect of it ourselves and doing it on the cheap.  It certainly helps that my husband is one of those mechanical engineering / woodworking / photographic memory guys.

We craiglisted everything from the concrete block to the timbers, and schooled ourselves at the local library.  To be honest, I was mostly on cooking duty for this project but now I can say without a doubt I know exactly what you need to do to excavate a site for a radiant heat concrete pad, and maybe by the end of the month I'll know how to put up rafters.  (please note, I am not physically capable of doing any of these things, just good at talking about them.)


so here comes the slide show ...

Day 1, scraping the yard flat

RIP miss greta, the best project supervisor ever!

Ben having fun on his little rolling machine, making a mess

digging the ditch to the house for water and electric

finally got to pour the footer after many monsoons and many evenings of bailing out the ditches. not fun.

Laying the corners out - I seem to remember talk of the Pythagorean Theorem. You actually do need that in real life!

this pic is a million moons later, laying block TOOK FOREVER. enough time for grass to grow inside the building!

At this point we accepted the help of some college kids next door to flatten out the crushed stone. Remember those 100 degree days this summer? that was this day.

laying out the vapor barrier getting ready for the insulation and radiant heat tubes.

those pretty red radiant heat tubes. dreaming of cozy snowy nights.

FINALLY pouring the floor, that was a good day. we enlisted the help of our awesome neighbors.
the virginville crew kicks ass! 

ben using yet another fun machine to get the floor smooth. 

I don't think you can measure the happiness we felt being out of the mud and onto the fun stuff. wall building!

again, our neighborhood crew gets together for a wall raising. amish style!

this is where we are today, another wall up, another one in the works. 

We hope to under roof by Thanksgiving - and I hope to be back to designing and making shiny things by the holidays ... anyone out there doing any big fun projects?