The building is nice and straight ... it's the door that's crooked.
There it is, beside the greenhouse.
That's The Shack with the green metal roof with that great vent on top.
When we bought this place in 2002, The Shack was piled full of junk. (real junk ... not the good kind that some of us hunt down and pay money for.) It had a cracked concrete floor that was fourteen inches below the door sill, so it was quite a step over and down to go inside. One summer, I cleared out that junk to install a new floor system ... to make it solid, level, and dry.
Doesn't every gardener have an enormous, embarrassing pot dump?
I designed the floor framing to be sort of like a deck, with double outer rim joists, a double central beam, and field joists that are hung from joist hangers ... all of this was to lift the framing off the floor and to make it independent of the homemade rock-and-mortar foundation. Ran out of plywood toward the end of the project, and never took the time to get more and finish the job. Soon, we started to gradually load the building with our OWN junk. (sigh)
In the interest of full disclosure, I admit that I had tidied up a little bit before I thought to take these photos. The central path you see wasn't quite as wide as it is now, because I had to move some things in order to have room to walk through while I worked. The worst of what I cleaned up was two large bags of potting soil that were exploded and spread around by a groundhog. In fact, I am fairly certain that there is a groundhog living in the northeast corner under the floor ... evidence of this is the damage done to four foam stool cushions, three of which are chewed to pieces and one is completely gone.
See in the center of this photo how the floor isn't finished?
The stain on the floor in the lower left corner of this photo is from what the groundhog did to the potting soil.
My goal for right now is modest ... I have to empty the building. I can't do this by simply moving everything somewhere else, because there ISN'T anywhere else that will hold it all. Since I'm not using the greenhouse to produce roses for sale right now, it can serve as a temporary home for some of this stuff.
Lots of treasures in this photo!
These windows will replace the Shack's current tiny shed windows.
I'm having to make some hard decisions about other things ... am I REALLY keeping things to use in the future, or to fix up and sell, or is this a glimpse into the beginning of full-out hoarding?
I love this door that I got last year at the Habitat ReStore in Richmond.
1940s metal Jamestown kitchen cabinets in good condition ... another treasure.
It's a wonderful 13 feet from the floor to the ridge beam, once I remove the beaverboard and framing of the dropped ceiling.
This is what I have decided to do ... when I come across something that I know I will never use again, I will get rid of it immediately. Some things (not many) are in a pile to be taken to the dump. Other things that I don't want or need are being photographed and immediately placed on Craig's List in the 'Free' section. This provides a little bit of instant gratification for me, and it makes the recipients happy at the same time ... win win for all of us!
This heavy-duty bubble wrap was once the insulation on the inside of my greenhouse. Now it will help keep someone else's chicken house warm in the winter.
Flashing for the greenhouse skylights, that I didn't use. These are going to a new home later today.
Gnarly picket fence sections will be craft projects for a lucky young lady.
I have been scribbling measurements and sketching design ideas like crazy. I can ABSOLUTELY imagine what this little building can be when it's finished. (My 'Cottage Ideas' board on Pinterest contains everything I see that may serve as inspiration as I move forward with this project.) For now, though, I have to concentrate on the important things:
1. Sort and store (or dispose of) all of the items that are currently inside the building.
2. Take up the plywood on the floor, evict the groundhog and clean up his mess.
3. Install vapor barrier and insulate the floor.
4. Reinstall the plywood.
4. Remove the dropped ceiling and all of its framing.
I think it's realistic to expect that I can get this done before winter (in addition to the other projects around the place that I have in the works).
I fell in love with this little building the first time I saw it while we were here touring the property with our realtor. It's a perfect size (17' x 23') with its own electric supply. There is no plumbing, but that's okay. I knew when I saw it that I could rework it into something really special ... think of it as a Folly, or a studio ... or, maybe one day, a little shop of my own.