Under Construction: The Shop

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Not too much has been going on inside the house (with the exception of me starting my nesting phase and going through ALL of our moving boxes and deciding what to keep, donate or throw away), but this post is mainly for the guys ;) Well, and a little bit for the girls. I think some of you might appreciate a part of it.

One of the big selling points to my husband in buying this house was the shop in the backyard. It's 26' x 36', 15' tall and is pretty much a match made in heaven for my car / house project obsessed spouse. Every time someone comes over to the house for the first time he leads them through a very quick tour of the inside and then promptly says "but you've got to see my shop!" and most men drool. 

Being renovators and keeping up with his passion for cars means we need a good amount of work space. So this shop fits the bill for him quite nicely, but he's been itching for the last 3 months to get that shop in order. Until now it's mostly been one of the storage areas for our extra furniture, random boxes and all of his tools. His goal for his Christmas holiday is to get my Duraburb project finished, so that means he's got to get the place organized. Which led to him deciding to build our loft and the designated mama-baby area.

For those of you who are asking yourselves 'what the hay is a duraburb?' it's Adam's current automotive project in converting a gas guzzling Suburban into a diesel monster. It allows us to have the space that our growing family needs but not have to pay the premium of 7 mpg (instead we are expecting a more comfortable mid twenties). The name "duraburb" comes from the combination of a Duramax engine with a Suburban. It's affectionately called my "rig."

You see, even when the renovation is complete, this man's work will never be done. He thrives on projects (have I made that obvious enough yet??) and even when the Duraburb is done he's got an old BMW project waiting in the wings. It's set up for a lot of garage time for Daddy and although it's his passion and he loves doing it, he obviously misses his family while he's out there. So he graciously has set aside space in the shop that will be sectioned off as a safe, comfortable play area for myself and the kids.

This weekend he got the framing up for the loft and the plywood platform laid down. 

Our plans for this mama-baby area is to lay down the extra carpet that we have left over from our install, a couch, perhaps a small tv, toys and I've suggested that maybe he can build a little playhouse in there when he has some spare time. I've been trolling ideas on Pinterest for some really awesome playhouses lately and I know he will be able to deliver :) 

The mommy-baby area will have a half wall surrounding it with a gate to enter in through, so I'll be able to stand up and talk to Adam while he's working, without having to worry about kids getting into the shop area.

The shop already has a pellet stove in it (which will be outside of mama-baby land) so even during the colder months we'll all be cozy and get to hang out as a family together.

He still needs to build a permanent ladder and eventually will devise a pulley / elevator system to help get totes up and down without having to carry them up. Basically that means that I'll have no excuse that I can't go out to the stop to get the Christmas decorations down... ;)