Outside Influences
The workshop breathes (and moves) with the humid central Florida weather.
Working Outside
Our workshop is a 14 x 18 foot shed out back. It was built in 1929, about 5 years after our home went up.
It is essentially an outdoor shop. We put a new roof on it back in 1984 (for about $500.00), when we were more physically ambitious. It is still shedding most water, but time is running out for it.
The workshop breathes (and moves) with the humid central Florida weather and has seen dozens of hurricanes and 97 years of heavy storms, keeping our tools and materials safe. Two squirrel cage fans are my air-conditioners.
There is one (1) 15 amp circuit run to it, so there is much plugging and unplugging going on when we have to use machinery. Running lights, shop vac and a table saw at the same time is about its power limit (if I turn off the fans). Cordless tools have been a great boon to our arsenal of spinning things.
The walls are airish. When locked up, it keeps anything larger than a cat out. They consider themselves the top of the food chain here. They keep the rodents on their toes and run off pesky raccoons, but seem to coexist with beneficial opossums, who eat ticks, newt-lizards and poisonous snake babies. In turn, the newt-lizards and birds keep the insect populations at bay. Our ⅓ acre is a happy and self-balanced eco system, in an area that is experiencing the extreme loss of habitat and over-development of HOA ruled subdivisions.
Nature rules! We use no pesticides, insecticides or fertilizers here. We have adopted a live-and-let-live attitude toward what and who wants to live here. As long as they don’t bite or threaten the peace and balance, they are left alone to survive as they like.
Tip: Skin-so-Soft from Avon is an excellent mosquito and no-see-um repellent, although you and your shop will smell of Grandma.
Since we have been here (1978), the shed has been a candle factory, a waterbed frame and headboard business (it was the 80s), a sign and graphics shop, a VW Bug clinic, and now the birthplace of my international custom chopsticks and keychains empire.
Outside Inspiration
In my searches for things that interest my creative side, here are a few YouTube channels that I’ve been watching lately.
The Handcrafted Podcast: “The Business of Making Things”
Matt Carves
Laura Kampf
Alec LaCasse
With my free-hand letter style, there is plenty of long-grain strength left within and between letters. My wood name keychains are very durable and there are quite a few still in regular service that I carved 30+ years ago.
DustyNewt World ~ A map of where I have shipped my woodstuffs. See if your town is represented.
If you are enjoying what you see… I like it hot and black. 😉
