Progress. I'm in favour of it.

  So I've finally gotten things together and made progress on my home shop.  Any and all things not inherent to the structure of the building have been removed.  This includes spiders.  (They were not happy.)  The plan was to dig down about 4 inches plus some more around the edges for drain pipes and fill.  Then some plastic and styrofoam and 5 inches of concrete.  The garage door also needed to be removed and reinstalled correctly.  I had a contractor do that part.  I feel vaguely guilty about it, but only in the most fleeting of moments.  I just don't have the time for it.  The contractor brought in ten guys and knocked the whole thing out in a day.  It was glorious.  I waited a few days and then laid some 3/4" plywood down over it.  Then I set about putting down some flooring.  I went out to Windhorse Farm and asked them for the cheapest offcuts from their flooring business.  I don't believe in ugly wood and I don't mind short floorboards.  Besides, 14' quartersawn white oak just isn't in my budget.  I also chopped up some ash offcuts from my job to make an endgrain ash border.  I caught a little flack from the other guys at my job for trying to make a 'pretty' shop floor, but what the heck, I ran with it.  Inside the border I thought I'd lay the boards diagonally.  It's a bunch of random widths of knotty pine and hackmatack.  Just the stuff for a South Shore shop.  If it was a commercial space I'd prefer hardwood, but for a homeshop the soft stuff will do just fine.

I almost don't want to fill it up with stuff.

 I needed to make a cheap workbench to build everything on.  The problem is always that it helps to have a workbench when you're making a workbench.

I have a fairly serious love/hate relationship with air nailers.  For one thing, they're just so darned convenient.  On the other hand, they're noisy and I keep getting tangled up in the hose.  I never seem to have the right size nail at hand and it's kind of pricey when you add up everything.  (I have a large compressor at the shop, two small compressors to travel, 4 different gauge nailers, a stapler, and various other attachments.  However, there are times when a die grinder will save your sanity.)




From the doorway it looks like I'm done.

But no, I'm just part of the way there.  I told my wife that work would go so much better if it was like a movie montage.  Just a few cut frames of the floor coming together and me looking quizzically at the nailer, or stubbing my thumb, and then bam, it's done and I'm drinking beer.  However, it's going fast enough, so I can't complain.  Well I can, but it won't be valid.  Once I finish this up I'll do a bit of sanding and coating and I can move in.  Wait until you see the old vise I picked up in Maine for next to nothing.  It's a brute.