Hi guys…been absent for a while. Pottzy reached out in another post to ask how my new "man castle" was coming….So I though this may be the forum to tell you all. I have been reading this everyday, just haven t had anything to really contribute.
The answer to progress is slow. To bring others up to speed, I owned and operated a Portrait Studio in Iowa for the last 43 years. I planed to retire in July of 20, which I did. I had a nice little building on the leading edge of the main drag into our downtown. I sold that building to my neighboring business and sold all the contents in a month long going out of business sale. The only problem was about 20 years ago, I moved to doing sports (team and individual photos) in the schools and moved away from weddings…..we still did all the rest of the stuff, but Covid shut down the schools and sports and league sports. So I didn t raise as much cash I thought I would.
My retirement was effective Aug 1. I had applied for building permits and such in June, but it was complicated by Covid also as the building depts were only available by internet and phone. August 10 we got hit with an inland hurricane, called a Derecho ( yah, I never heard of it either)..It truly pounded the city and center swath of the State. Honestly, I don t know anyone that was not impacted by it. It was estimated that there was 200,000 trees, toppled, topped or damaged some how. It was awful
. The problem is, it impacted roofs, siding, fences etc etc….while I already had a contractor, my concrete contractor gave me up and never showed…the excavating company too. The building dept was overrun and not efficient to begin with. I got a building permit September 28. I went through 7 concrete contractor before I got one to show….they excavated and poured in the month of December. Then we could not get OSB for the contractor….on and on.
On Dec 20 I tripped over our new little dog in the driveway and shattered my elbow. I was in 4 pieces, I am just now getting PT, but still I am useless for any sort of finishing work. I just got the ability to type with both hands about 2 weeks ago.
So as not to turn this into a tale of woe, I understand there were going to be problems, but I am retired now and will deal with them as I can….I am a glass half full kind of guy and will not let this stop me….slow me, definitely….not stop.
So as for the building….I have a deep narrow lot. It is 350 ft deep and 80 ft wide, I have my house and 3 stall garage on the front half. The garage sits behind my house and 90 degrees to the house with a large concrete apron that takes the entire width of the lot….there is now a gravel driveway from the the far end of the apron the extends 90 to a 24×40 building. In April it will be concrete. ( I hope April) The building was complicated as it had to be nestled into a slight hill. The back and 1/3 of the sides have 2 concrete stub wall to hold back the soil. The front 2/3 of the building have a 1 concrete wall. The front will be flush. It will have heat, air, cat6, mesh router, 200 amp service, and cable tv. Construction is stalled now, the service door which you can not see in the photo because it is sheeted over, opened the wrong way and was custom painted…..the garage door folks will not be here until Feb 25, and the windows are on back order until Mar 1. There is snow on the roof which is tar-papered, and slick and today the high is 3 degrees with wind chill to -12. I can not have the gas line or electrical trenched until the ground thaws, but have plans to have the wiring done March 6. So as you can see the key word here is patience, and to achieve that one only needs to go outside for ten minutes and you will understand.
I have been collecting things for this for 2 years now….my current shop you can not walk in, for all the new toys stacked around…..I am so excited to get in there it is sometimes hard to sleep for all the planning going on in my head. I couldn t use it anyway…with only one hand.
As soon as I m well enough I will install the electrical, insulate, and sheet the attic and paint the inside. I forgot to mention the attic has custom built trusses, with an 11 center section for storage 6 tall. I have a lot of crap! Because I did not make the money I thought in the last 6 months of my business I had to cut out water and sewer. I am thinking a year or down the line of installing an incinerator toilet. Anybody have experience with them? They are pricey…..2k or so. That s what I have been doing. I was going to post this on "my workshop" post, but it doesn t move the posting to the front so no one sees it….anyone know how to move it?
- moke
