Bigger

With great pride I announce that I bought my very first forklift yesterday! There's Matthew (Matt) phoning a friend for tips on what to look for, when used-forklift-hunting.

We have spent the better part of this year carefully preparing to expand our business. We're in the process of building a new shop (BIGGER) and that will help immensely. Taller ceilings will mean cooler working temps in the summer and more floor space means more WORK space. We usually have three to five projects going on at one time. This forklift should come in handy moving things around in the new space, too. We've definitely out grown the little "formerly-a-small-town-grocery-shop" and home office that we thus far have built our business in.

And a bigger work space will require more forges! (Blacksmiths heat their metal in what is called a "forge".)
Matt got a good jump on one of the new gas forges last night as well and started putting it to use today.

While our builder & his crew build the new building, we continue to work every day in our "old shop" (shown below). I believe we'll start a 'beautification project' on the old place after we've moved into the "new shop". But I'm not in any kind of hurry. That's kind of a mid-term goal starting in a few years or so, and I have exactly decided what I want to do with it yet. It would be great to at least continue to maintain the building, since it has such a great history. And as it sits roadside along on our property, it may make a great showroom or gallery of some kind in the future... or maybe a nice clean, quiet design office.

And so without further delay, I'll show you another picture from the yard... a snap shot of the progress on our "new shop"! It still needs a lot of work & some doors and windows, etc. But it's well underway. It is also located on our property, right behind our old shop. It's basically a pole barn that we're wrapping in board and batten siding. Just a little extra effort, because I wanted something a little prettier

 than an ordinary metal building. 

It will have an office, a break room, it's own bathroom & septic, etc and a vented spray booth for finishing our metalwork. Looks like we'll start with a few more work tables and hopefully we'll leave just enough space for that new forklift.  I'm heading back down to the (old) shop to get back to work with the boys, so ttfn (ta ta for now) &  I'll keep you posted on our progress!