It's creepy and it's kooky ... Friday, April 18th

I have been going at it non-stop for a while now and I am starting to get a little burnt out. I decided I was going to take it easy on Friday and since Double E and I had some plans for the weekend, thought it might be a good time to take a break in general. But by early Friday evening I was getting bored and Double E was working late so I decided I would clean out the shed. I wanted to do this for two reasons: 1) by summer, working on this thing in the heat will be unbearable and 2) there are hornet and/or wasp nests everywhere inside this thing and i would really like to clear them out and get it sealed off prior to their return (thus making it unuseable).

The shed, as mentioned previously is split into two halves. The left side, which is on a concrete slab and seems to be some kind of crude workshop with some termite damage (confined to only the left side of the shed - not in the house, garage, etc. ) The right side has a paver base floor and looks to be storage for tools, mowers , etc. (and is serving just that purpose for me).

I knew as soon as i saw it that the left side would need to be cleared out and turned into a bar. My initial thought was tiki bar ... i have been pricing bamboo matting and thatch rolls lately to get a feel for materials costs ... and my second thought was to turn it into a fancy little cottage (still a bar, just with a cottage exterior - English style). I am still leaning towards a tiki bar, however. it's more festive and probably a little more my "style".

Anyway ... this is an 8 ft. by 8 ft. space ... and you would not believe the amount of crap that i pulled out of it. see for yourself in the lovely photo mosaic below:


see what i mean?































here's what it looked like inside ...
you can see the old man's makeshift woodshop ... but it was all rotting and that is probably what enticed the termites - see the damage? i will have to replace a number of the supports. i actually hit one of them with a hammer and found an active termite colony, but i didnt have anything to kill them with so i improvised ... i went to the garage and grabbed a rattle can of red Krylon and sprayed them until they were all dead. On sunday, i actually sprayed the whole thing down with termite repellent.



yuck ... there was a bag of concrete underneath that got wet and cured in the shape of the bag itself.











here you can see one side pre-clean up. some more termite damage and some clutter from my demolition. i swept everything up and it looks fairly respectable now. i can't wait until i get a chance to start working on this - i think it is going to look amazing. definetly something to be proud of ...







did i find any hidden treasures you ask? you bet!
this old Shop Craft jig saw in working order. notice the lack of safeguards present on this thing ... pre-OSHA i am guessing. anyway, i bought some blades for it the next day, but they didn't fit (thanks Lowe's dude) so i haven't had a chance to use it yet.








anything else in there of note? yup!
what's this, you ask? oh ... only one of about three stacks of asbestos. replacement panels for the house, i am guessing. don't think i'll be holding onto those. actually, asbestos really isn't that dangerous unless you are cutting/drilling/sanding it ...and it takes a bit of exposure. besides, if it was good enough to kill steve mcqueen, it's good enough to kill me.