barn raising

For all my moroseness the other day, the shop is actually, finally, getting built. On Memorial Day we had a bit of a barn raising. Marc had been busy the previous 4 – 6 weeks building the walls in sections and on that day our son and a friend came out to help get it all erected. And, oh, was it hot on Memorial Day.

walls going up

getting it all connected

enough rafters and joists to hold up the ridge beam

the work crew at the end of the day

the last week Marc has been finishing the roof

nearly done

Soon it will be ready for the metal cladding and roofing and the barn doors at each end. 

It's not a big building...12' x 40' with a 10' apron in the front and in the back. This is where our kilns will go and probably the cold working equipment and the mold making for the cast glass which is very messy. I'd rather not have either of those processes in the other parts of the studio. This new studio/shop is going to be a series of separate rooms/buildings. The two rooms in the back part of the house are set up for the drawing studio (and other crafty endeavors) and the model making for the cast glass, the connected garage will be for the etched glass fabrication. We will still have to bring the small building here on a trailer that is the sandblasting room in Houston and find a place to put it.

When we first bought this place, put the bid in on it, we planned on building a bigger shop on the back third of the property. Turned out that's where the drain field is for the septic system and we couldn't build there. We could have built on the middle third which is the shady part of the yard with the pecan trees but we didn't want to do that (though we may build off the side of the garage later). That left just a narrow strip along one edge of the property which is why the building is the size and shape it is. We could have cut down the two maples and made it wider but we didn't want to do that either (and a bigger slab and building would have been more expensive and we wouldn't even be this far along).

The next big hurdle will be getting the electrical in.