The Shop — Demolition & Construction
Vernon, BC
The above photo was taken in the summer 0f 2007, shortly after I'd begun to dismantle the old shop to make way for the new. Part of the trickiness of the project is that I wanted to salvage as much of the old planks and ship-lap as possible, to use for trim and various projects (shelving, workbench, etc.) once the new shop was finished. When we arrived in Vernon in May 2007 I went straight at the old thing, tearing off the roof, then the walls, then the frame, until I wrestled it down to a few slivers and blood blisters.
Once it was down the ground needed some excavation, a slab to be poured, and despite the usual delays with rain and contractors, soon enough I was framing up the walls and (foolishly) engineering the trusses.
Once the building was up, wired, drywalled & painted, I ripped some of the old wood to use for trim; you can see the new window sill and a couple of other interior views below.
Now, head back to The Shop page to check out photos of the current set-up with the presses and all the rest of the bits & pieces in place...
Origins
Part of the draw in buying the house, for me, was an old L-shaped shed in the backyard, which I had big plans to renovate, but once we moved in and I had a chance to really look at what was left holding it together, it quickly became clear my plans were for naught.
And so, the process of tearing down what was there to make way for what would be began. This process, of course, also involved building permits and concrete and extreme heat and week-long rains, and a few near-issues with the nail-gun, but piece by piece, custom truss by truss, and after a double dose of wiring (after I did so incorrectly the first time), the shop was eventually finished in the late fall of 2008.
