So the guys are moving along: The insulation is finished and now they're on to the finishing the drywall on the main floor.
While they work, I'm hacking away at my to-do list: Hunting for and picking up the next layer of details. The lighting is all found or ordered. I have a lead on a giant basement equipment sink. I'm picking up an eBay kiln today... And so on. I'm also getting some announcements out, LIKE.... our Grand Opening Party (!)
But here's the "problem" I keep running into... If there were a theme to this entire project, this is what it seems to be. I keep finding and picking up very cool, funky old things that have a lot of character and fit with the evolving style of the shop, which is turning out to be, "Eclectic artsy elegant." But as I pull these old things into the shop and take a better look at them, I notice that underneath the old varnish, rust and dirt, these are really, really beautiful things. (Kind of like the shop itself). So then my original plan of, "I'll throw some paint on it, some home-made tile and use it as a coffee table," becomes, "Oh crap, that thing is gorgeous..." and I'm on Google researching furniture refinisher and tung oil brands. "Slap paint on it," is now a five-day refinishing project, and I STILL don't have a knock around coffee table, or whatever the thing-du-jour is.
So my to-do list gets longer instead of shorter, and at some point I'll have to quit my new junk store habit. I suppose I'll fill the void with, oh I don't know, making pottery??
Walls!
Update: Found cafe/coffee tables! Thank you, Salvation Army Doner, come and visit your donation in about a month! But like the rest of this post, after I removed the really junky table tops to paint the bases, I had THE most awesome idea how to make new tops... dammit. But at least they'll still be coffee-table-able, and the furniture hunting phase of this project is almost done.
Windows! (Well, three out of ten, anyway, to start). Bring in the light!
I have a view!
Cleared out most of the backside garbage dump and started to "landscape" the 2.5 foot strip between the bricks and the train... (one echinacea, one fig, and a bug-chewed bench).
And a sink! Surprising to both me and the UConn surplus sales people, these were a hot commodity. I stayed out of the verbal fight and ran with my sink.