update on yesterdays blog.

Update on Church Pews 

(yesterday's craigslist find) 

pic of the actual pew i will be getting. 

    After about an hour of screwing around trying to get the craigslist pic to download and finally coming to the conclusion that it never was as I feel it is formatted to not be disseminated, although it does show up in my windows word program. I figured since Windows Word was able to view it, if I down loaded the file to my puter it would automatically transfer file. No frigging way. As you can tell I know enough about puters to make me really dangerous and at times really thankful I am not building bombs. Or I wouldn’t have any hands to type with. Some of you out there may think that may be an acceptable equation they could live with but me personally I would miss irritating those people with my values of free speech.

     But I have been known to borrow a file or two, and if someone posts on the internet you really need to copyright your work if you want to have a gripe about reuse and by all means watermark your pics and original work you publish. I avoid all watermarked material that isn’t posted publicly. I also will not copy anything that is copyrighted and never plagiarize, although I was accused of it once in college. Very serious charge but when the professor was charged to make another test up or provide me with another to take to see if I knew the material she refused and gave me my A I deserved. I have some scruples, just a few I use now and then.

     So anyhow after posting, I did as I said yesterday and called the number and talked to a person who was tasked to deal with the calls and arrangements were made to meet with the pastor and although I had to wait a bit because of confusion between the three of us, I was eventually allowed to inspect the pews and the facility or church where they are currently stored. Getting them out should not be too bad as it is a long ramping stairway with no steps that will allow a furniture mover set of wheels to transport the pews on to my truck.

     It looks as though the pews can be taken apart and will do so with the cordless screwdriver. The backs of the seats appear to be hardwood as seams transfer inside and these appear to be solid wood. They have a nice finish on them now, and I intend to preserve that if I can. By disassembling the pews and I can haul them in my pickup and may well be able to haul them all in one load. It is a pretty good ways over there and I want to minimize the trips as much as possible. There are 15 pews they are giving away that are 12’6” long. Each back piece is 2 feet wide. This will give me roughly 360 sq. ft. of hardwood surface and enough to form a hardwood floor between the loft area and the bedroom below to be supported by rough sawn timbers from here on the farm . The lattice work of timbers will allow me to have a bed suspended on chain lengths effectively making it a swinging bed.  The sides of the bed suspended above the floor at a height that will make getting me in and out a priority.

     But the bed and frame of the bed will form the necessary framing to suspend a platform from chains attached to the ceiling. I imagine this can be quite entertaining at times, like when in the middle of the night you wake up and suddenly feel the bed swaying from side to side for no apparent reason. But this feature may come in handy when as it would make the bed earthquake proof. They say we are behind in a major earthquake in this part of Ohio, where I live in a relatively stable zone except for the occasional fracking earthquakes.

      The underside of the pews which would be the front back supports would be placed face down in whole lengths when I can to form a paneled wood ceiling. I should surely have enough for that and also to use as treads for the spiral staircase to the second floor loft. The ends of these will be supported by the outside wall and the inside will have an open look for possibly a totem or some kind of sculpture to be displayed. These are my preliminary plans and nothing is written in concrete till it is actually done. I may come up with a better idea, or different materials as I go along and I need to be flexible and keep my eyes open to allow myself the opportunity to make a once in a lifetime house of original design.

      Just as in the case of the church pews I highly doubt I could come up with that much square footage of hardwood of that furniture quality had I not been open to ideas. Since I am in the preliminary stages of designing I can easily find a fit for the materials as well have it fit into the overall scheme of what I am trying to accomplish in designing interior and exterior spaces. The fact I will be able to reuse materials is also a big plus when it comes to consideration of cost and of natural resources. This is just 360 square foot of timber that does not need to be harvested, and will find a second use in its life.

       Well depending on how bad this winter clipper is today , I should be over there in Youngstown tomorrow working on tearing one apart to see how easily they disassemble till I get an idea of what I need to get them home. As well today I need to make space in the garage to accommodate and store these pews till I am ready to build. I will need to cover and protect them from moisture and dirt. The better I would keep them, the easier it is to reuse them a second time. As they are I doubt if I would need to do much but install them and fill minor gaps between panels with epoxy and maybe match finishes that may be exposed. As far as the majority of the boards go, little needs to be don’t to the finish. So it is important I keep it that way.

      I am still not quite sure what the seats are made of but would assume it is also structural as most of the weight of a bench would be transferred down. These could possibly be used as a subfloor in another room say the kitchen. I just need to get them home before tearing up the seat cushion or maybe when I finally flip a seat over and see what the material is I will have a better idea of where to use that also. The end and seat supports could be re-glued together to make an unusually strong shorter bench or whatever. I am not sure of now. A lot will depend on how much material I have left after doing the floors. Still there is another 360 sq. ft. of free flooring to aid in building my house in one shot. Yesterday I made significant progress in making my new addition a reality. It does pay to keep your eyes open and frequently source out your materials you need in advance of your actual using them.  

      And the other day I was able to take a drive and have dinner with a friend at the Steak and Heifer, That isn't the name but instead something i made up.  But it is in Roscoe Village and so will leave you with some pics i took while i was waiting on my dinner guest to arrive.