renovating the shop

When I first got to apro and started using the shop it looked a lot like this (though not this, this is my mess). It was a storage space with stuff everywhere, parts entirely impassable. I did some rearranging of things earlier, got it looking good. But once I was there for a while I was told the woodworking shop was going to move in there with me. So I was asked to condense.

A former employee, Ash, had suggested to me at one point that I move everything to one side of the shop. I could even open up the office area to use the floor space. At first I really didn't like the idea, but in the light of splitting up the shop it was a very good idea. I proposed it to the staff and they accepted.

This was going to be the first to go:

The plan was to leave the upper part as a loft, the underside opened up as the welding area. This made sense for a couple of reasons. Aside from the space sharing, the upper part of this intereior structure was getting pretty moldy. Having the welding going on under the loft meant that curtains could be hung from the loft to protect others working from getting flash burn. It also got the welder closer to the actual plug, which helps. And it meant that the space had a single door to be entered through, rather than having to open up the big garage door to go in.

First I moved everything away from the office/apartment structure. Then I started tearing things apart.

It was a lot of work, maybe a month or two, mostly by myself. Here's the condensed version.

There were massive amounts of debris. And ants. Lots of carpenter ants.

To finish up the structure I salvaged most of the wood pictured above to build the deck on the loft. I also used it to build, I don't know what the right term is, foot boards along the perimeter of the former office.

Then came cleaning. After that, moving everything back into place.

It always amazes me that, despite all of the over-documentation that I do, I seem to always miss at least one really important shot. In this case I'm missing everything all put together nice and neat. The wheels and bikes were eventually moved to hang overhead, as they did on the other side of the shop, just to the right of the loft. The space really opened up significantly. Things fit well, they were organized well, it was a good move, I'm glad it happened.