12/28/08

Happy Holidays More Views
It's been a nice holiday with all my children home and several parties—all in my rather confined house. Many times I thought how nice it will be when we can have a big party at the shop with the overhead doors all open and access to the courtyard.

12/21/08

Graphic Views
I have been using some new display options in Sketch Up. I eliminated the outlines and carefully framed each shot sometimes adjusting the shadows to get just the right effect. Some of them are very interesting as graphic art.

12/18/08

New Slide Show-Lots of Changes

The new slide show to the left can be clicked on and enlarged. I have updated my Sketch Up model to reflect the final plans. Several changes can be seen—from the single entry doors to the revised clerestory. An interesting modification is the change to a transparent roof on the entry and shop door overhangs. This will be made of the same plexiglas material used on the clerestory. I have also added all the built-in cabinets from the plans. The architect provide complete drawings of all of these down to the joinery. He designed them to be built in MDF so I have colored them to reflect that—some may be built with traditional materials and we might paint or stain them to introduce some color, especially in the kitchen area. These updates have taken several evenings worth of work. My next step is to work on some shop drawings for the built-ins that we are responsible for. I'm not sure how to do them but I have plenty of time to figure it out.

12/7/08

Final plans—Studio & living areas
Looking at the Southwest wing—the final plans illustrate the changes we made to the original plans. The bedrooms and studio are located in this section.
The studio is a separate room with it’s own ceiling and roof at about 11 ft. The outer wall screens the building from the southern sun. The entrance courtyard splits in two around it with identical glass entrance doors at both ends. The original plans called for double doors. The studio has a glass storefront window on one side and five panel glass door on the other. The shared wall has as a built-in desk, book shelves and two openings to the living areas.
The open room includes dining and living-rooms, with a one step up to the galley kitchen. This floor is hardwood and runs back through the bedrooms. Along the kitchen wall are a row of built-ins housing a coat closet, pantry, refrigerator, dishwasher dish storage and a laundry The island has a steel frame and contains a built in cook top, oven and down draft vent— the work surface cantilevers over both sides by 36” so it can be used a table
You can also see the changes made to the guest bath. The door has been moved so it can be accessed with out disturbing the occupants. This required a finished ceiling—­the master bathroom has none. One interesting thing I failed to notice until seeing these plans is that the wall separating the bedrooms does not support the clerestory between them. It remains with the steal supports. The bump-out has a steel framed plastic transparent ceiling above it. This is hard to describe so I will illustrate it in Sketch Up.

12/4/08

Creative Financing - Painting site up and running
Thinking about the shop a bit today. I will have to be very creative to get this building going. Might look into state of GA, or White Co. grants for arts as a source of some funding. We could do print making or woodworking workshops or a combo of both. Space could be rented for events to companies or organizations like Highland Hardware or Atlanta area artist groups. Actually— this has always been part of the original idea for the shop. The bedrooms are only to give you the luxury of time—allowing you to sleep over and work on projects requiring equipment and space continuously while you stay for a few days—or as long as you need. The bedrooms could be used as offices or rooms for visiting artists. The shop part of the building is 930 sq. ft., the studio adjacent to the main room in the other wing is 247 sq. ft. . We already have the all the woodworking equipment. A Intaglio or letterpress could be set up in the studio. This facility is adjacent to most of North Georgia’s premier tourist attractions— Helen, the Chatahoochee river and National forest, Unicoi Park / Smith Lake, and Lake Burton is only 15 miles away. So there is plenty of inspiration and recreation near by.
This week we found some time at AutoMedia and finally published the bosses artwork on line. Please visit: EdCahill.com and enjoy the galleries —more to come. Contact me with any questions you may have at autoeac@mindspring.com.

12/2/08

Reality Bites/Life goes on
Yes, it’s been longer than just a few weeks—just about six months from the last entry. But I’m not giving any excuses —we all know what is going on right now. We stopped all work on the shop months ago. I made the decision that instead of risking more cash that I would suspend construction until things get a little more sane. None-the-less I have been busy finishing up the plans with the architect and also had the builder close up the shop to prevent any damage or safety issues. The final set of plans look very good and are ready to go. (elevations above) Bob and his crew did a great job on all the details and I’ve spent hours and hours going over them. It’s killing me, but I will use this time to get everything just the way it should be. It’s good that we did not commit to a loan before this financial crisis and now be staring at pretty hefty payment. 2010 or 11 is a long way off but I think that is what we might be looking at. Unless something wonderful happens.
I’ve decided to return to the blog and fold it into some of my personal interest—art, design and architecture.