Cartoon Wednesday

 

Outbuilding Work Continues

The garden is planted, all six beds, looking forward to fresh vegetables from that later this summer. The roses are in full bloom as are all the other early summer flowers so the backyard is quite colorful. All of that is thanks to my wife because the last thing you want is me trying to plant anything, I am cleared to water though!

The greenhouse still has one wall to seal up but the baseboard vents have been cut in and framed. Really just need an hour or so to finish that wall and then I can turn my attention to the exhaust fan and figuring out how to setup the solar power. That means insulating the ceiling will need to wait.

If you were paying attention to the interior pictures of the shop you would notice that the only rafters present are at the ends supporting the lofts. Since there is a distinct possibility of carousel animals coming in for repair at this point I have added a complete set of 2x6" rafters. The ability to add a pulley system of some kind to lift horses and what not up and off the poles is important, for instance the lion weighs in at close to 700 pounds and he needs a new base as the current one is beginning to sag. 

In addition this will allow me to add can lights over the workstations if we need to. It will also make insulating that ceiling a whole lot easier. Getting those rafters up took most of a morning, a very hot morning. That building is definitely going to need a good exhaust fan as well. Now it just needs power!

The north end toward the northwest corner. I got a good deal on insulation so I bought everything I could and now have to work around it.

Looking north towards the east corner. That swatch of sunlight is from the skylight, wish there had been on option to add another one. It let's in an amazing amount of light.

Looking south towards the western corner. I added a total of seven rafters 2x6" beams.

Looking south towards the eastern corner. I doubled up the rafters where the lofts were built. That will give me ability to add more flooring up there if we need to. I'm mostly thinking a strip around the edges in case we need to add can lights above the tool stations.

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Greenhouse Progress

While we wait for the electrician to get the shop wired up I managed to make a little progress on the greenhouse. Three walls are now insulated and sealed up and both baseboard vents are installed. I also managed to get the insulation in place on the remaining wall, I just need to put the plywood up on that now.

I saved the easiest wall for last. The opposite wall is the one with all the windows that took me days to finish.

This should make it, mostly, workable at this point. What remains is a fan in the east side gable to pull air through (apparently that will help the plants) and keep it from becoming stuffy. That will require power and the greenhouse is just to far away from the main panel (which doesn't have any room left on it anyway) to put in a power line. So this building will go solar, I just need enough power to run the fan, possibly a small heater (when or even if needed) and charge batteries for the various battery powered lawn tools. The solar kit I was looking at initially is 400 watts not sure I need that much. The most expensive part of that system is the battery storage that will costs more than the whole solar kit!

Excited about getting to the work on the shop, a lot of work in front of us there as well. I'm opting to go with the Omniwall system to create tool stations for the lathes in particular. So much to do!

Cartoon Wednesday