For some years, we’ve badly needed to remodel our barn. One slow step at a time, things have been shifting — first we found these blue plastic outdoor storage bins for animal feed, so now each animal has feed stored near its pen, and we no longer have a feed vs rats problem, and we no longer store feed in the barn. So we decommissioned the wire feed cage in which we used to store feed bags (and still contended with rats getting into it all the time!) We also acquired the potting shed and moved all the garden supplies, as well as camping supplies, and for a while painting supplies (which are now in the better-insulated pump house) out of the barn into it. But meanwhile, we were remodelling Mahazda, and a wide array of remodel-related items landed in the center of the only open floors pace in the barn, starting with a giant pile of great hardwood flooring intended for other projects, on top of which a pile of miscellaneous storage accumulated until the pile was over 7′ tall in places. not functional! and we had this half-wall separating the workshop area from the feed area… but we no longer needed to store feed in there.
photos of the “Before”:
So this spring, as part of our “catch up on lingering projects” year, we decided to empty it and remodel it. We scheduled a workday for our whole group to clean it out and make executive decisions about what to keep and what to get rid of (building materials we’ve stored for 10 years with no use in sight? freecycle, already! we had a very busy freecycling day, and are much better for the lightened load!).
these all became destined to become someone else’s backyard fence project — a much better use than sitting around in the back of our barn taking up space.
And when we had the barn emptied out, then Rev pretty much single-handedly tackled the task of turning the barn’s full floor-space into a functional workshop.
It took some thinking.
And some creative re-invention of space.
and some help from the cat.
and a great deal of building of benches, counters and shelves.
but after a while, the space took shape.
(note how this chop-saw is level with the counter. nice, eh? safer, too.)
and having taken shape, order emerged.
there’s room to work! a place for everything, and room for expansion! and it’s considerably easier to find tools, to put them back where they belong, and to fully utilize the space. whew! brilliant work, Rev!