Retirement in the Fast Lane

I thought retirement was a slow pace of life. WRONG! We are living in the fast lane. Stop! Let's slow this buggy down, so we decide to do another project. This time it's more than a couple of days, it's major.

Hubby has been squeezed in his work shop for years. He could hardly turn around and had to use his table saw as a work bench. Sad, I know. So, we decided it was time for an addition to the original shop we built with our very own hands in 1973. Well, it actually took us years to finish that project. How many? I'll never tell, because it's just too embarrassing.

His 12' x 20' shop now has a 12' x 16' addition. It's kind of sad, changing the looks of the little building, but well worth it giving Hubby all the much needed space.

As you can see from the photo he has really been cramped in the old space.

The best part of this new addition? We didn't have to drive the first nail, but it was very frustrating watching the carpenters struggle to get the siding matched to the old part and level. Just a minor detail that drove me crazy. It took them three days to finally get it right, only after Hubby stepped in and told them what they needed to do to get the siding level. It was a long two weeks getting the structure finished. However, we did do the painting outside and inside. It took FOUR gallons of paint to cover that new drywall, two gallons of primer and two gallons of regular paint and a week of labor. The outside was a easy, we were painting primed Hardiplank.

The new addition makes the old part look really dingy, so now we are going to paint the walls/ceiling and trim. Oh my gosh! Look at all that stuff that we are going to have to move off the back wall of shelves to paint! The dark brown trim will be painted the lighter "bisque" color to match the new part. I'm sure it will help make the old part brighter doing away with the dark trim. It just occurred to me that it will probably take two coats of the light paint to cover that dark brown. Oh no! I convinced Hubby that the goldish color would better match the saw dust. You can see every speck of dust on that dark brown trim.


The new look seem strange to me still, but I'll grow accustom to it, eventually. There are still a few little things that need to be done outside before we are finished. The underside of the soffit has to be caulked and the windows scraped and cleaned. I just sloped the paint on those windows, because it was about about to rain, so I have to scrape the paint off now. I hope it won't be years before we get around to them.

Hubby is so thrilled. He wants to build a work bench and has been searching for plans. I think he will end up with a combination of several taking the best features from the plans he has found.

Oh yes, there are now tab curtains up in the shop. They actually add a bit of coziness to the place.

I would like to get this project off the to do list before Christmas. Do you think we'll make it?