Were they DIESEL trains Ryan? LOL...
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All of the buildings are stored in their original styrofoam packaging and boxes. Most of the figurines in their original plastic bubble packaging. The trees and figurines stack in large plastic tubs and everything is packed into an upstairs closet.
For many years I tossed all the carved landscaping into the trash. Carolynn was getting so much new stuff on sale after each Christmas, that I knew next years village would have to be bigger. And I kept finding new landscape ideas (waterfalls, grotos, ski slope, etc...) to incorporate. So the previous years foam was practically useless.
Until last year, the base was folding plastic tables. Made it hard to run all the wires. The base is now plywood on sawhorses and simple 2x3 supports. It all breaks down and gets stored flat in the garage. The new shop will have lots of attic storage.
Consider boxing in an opening in the attic floor and forming a drop down insert that drops down via an electric winch. Make your insert so that it's level with the attic floor for easy loading & unloading, and put a railing with gate around it to keep people from walking onto your "elevator", or falling through the hole. The older we get the more difficult it is to tote things up & down a set of attic steps. Young grandkids might want to ride up & down, though..... only when Grandma's not watching.
Lumber arrived last Friday. Now if it would just stop raining long enough for me to do some framing.
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Don't know about you wes, but we got 3.24 " of rain here 30 miles away from you in 24 hours! Thank god I got off work for the first 4 hours so I saw the back yard flooding towards the house. I have a dry well with a sump pump that didn't kick on, I think the float is getting stuck on it's guide rod. Fortunately a little tug to it's plug jostled it into action. Took about 5 minutes to stem the tide, but kept kicking on so that when I got home no water back there. Amazing the freak weather across the nation right now!
With the help of my nephew, I was able to build and erect these two 12' wall sections on Saturday before the rain started.
Two more days of rain, then at least a week of dry weather ahead. Hoping for some major progress.
Hey, that's a start! Nice work. Hopefully the weather will cooperate with you!
I'm not as far along as I'd hoped, but there has been progress on the shop.
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Nice! Just in time for the rain! Should be a great shop for you nice high ceilings with lots of space with nice beefy beams!
A short video of the shop progress.
https://youtu.be/bmNq4_vszYA
Wow Wes great progress. Should make for the ultimate retirement shop!
It is coming along very nice! How much weight can you put in the over head storage? I'm sure the no snow helps raise the limit?
The attic storage is rated at 125 psf. I can store engine blocks up there if I need to. Im glad I went to the higher rating, as I'm now researching the possibility of installing a gantry crane system.
My first inspection went well. Only a couple of corrections needed. Add a few brackets to the shear walls and blocking. And add one concrete anchor. Inspector said he'd sign those off at the next inspection and gave the go ahead to install the roof and rough electrical.
Took this pic this morning.
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With the roof and gutters installed, I'll be mounting electrical boxes and running wire soon. And I have a guy lined up to do all the stucco to match the house.
Looks great Wes. Are they putting a roof vent on it? I did that with my current attached garage and dropped the temp drastically in there!
I’ve installed two gable vents at the peaks and there are six eave vents. That gives me almost twice the minimum ventilation that is required by the engineer. It’s been close to or over 100 degrees at our place for weeks and it seems to stay relatively cool ... but of course there aren’t any doors to interfere with air flow right now.
That is looking very nice!
That should be a very nice shop, Wes! It looks kind of dry in your neighborhood, wish I knew how to send you some of our rain!
Great looking building a crane is great I have a 14" steel beam in mine and it is real handy, and Dave when you figure out how to send him rain let me know It won't stop here.
Please don't send the rain now!! Don't get me wrong, I love the rain, but I can wait a few months before it shows up here. I'll be digging my trench soon for the electrical and the clay soil here is bad enough to deal with when it's dry. The reality is, there are only a few days per year when the ground is soft enough to dig through easily. It's either hard as concrete (and full of 4" stones), or so saturated that it sticks to everything like sculptors modeling clay. The joke around here is to find the 15 minutes every year that its workable. I'd settle for a few days with temperatures in the 80's.
I understand the digging part. My last shop is to far from house to dig ditch so just had them run a new service to it. Much better than overloading home service. So I get two electric bills.
i love my electric company . they will run up to 1k foot to install a new pole. when i built it was 940 ft to my place. i ran underground to house and shop . but i aint digging a trench by hand . i'll rent a trencher .
Wes when I moved to my new house 2 years ago the Petaluma Adobe soil is exactly as you describe minus the rocks. I litteraly waited until late April to run a 50 foot gutter trench for drainage pipe. Every single spadeful had to be cut off the shovel with a garden knife, the adobe might as well be supper glue! This summer I waited too long to dig two post holes 24 inches deep each. The soil was close to hard pan for the first 18 inches until I hit moisture. Timing is exactly how you describe!
you can dig a trench pretty quick with a pressure washer . cuts a trench and leaves it full of water so digging is much easier. my soil is sandy clay. wet it's too slick to walk on , dry it is like concrete .
Used the backhoe on my little Kubota to dig out a raised area in our front yard. Had to do the same with each each bucket full. We’re moving a few plants around the property and each hole has to be at least twice the size of a normal transplant and filled with amendments. It’s like planting everything in clay pots.
After digging a trench 24' deep by 120' long and laying 2" conduit with the electrical service...
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...I was able to do this...
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...and finally some of this.
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Doing a little finish work inside while waiting for my stucco guy ro get back to me.
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Wow what a great space Wes! Are you doing any insulation in the walls or ceiling?
i see itch in the wall i think . or it could be knot holes i'm seeing. surely he used insulation .
Very nice! I'm betting you're relieved to have the trench done!
All it needs now is garage doors, down spouts, some trim paint and a final inspection.
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Are you going to pour approaches?
NICE! The arches give it a classy touch.
Ditto nice details make a huge difference
paint the inside of arches same as door color
Stretching for the finish line. Garage doors are in and operational.
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The three door look matches the three arches on the front of the house. I wish they were a little wider, but considering everything, I'm really please with how it turned out.
The approaches will be gravel for the time being, but will eventually be asphalt.
Very Nice Wes. Just in time for the rain!
Yup...just started this morning.
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After ter the hot rod is done that building would make a fine small scale Cidery or Winery(more of my hobbies;) )
The doors look very nice on there!