If you haven’t noticed, Maggie’s woodworking company has gone crazy!  She’s been making wonderful fiber working tools and small looms and her work is so lovely!  She has made over 2,000 different products for fiber artists all over the world since she started last July, 2015.  And all this fantastic work has been coming out of her little converted garage workshop.  And unfortunately, it was in serious need of a make over!

We didn’t have a lot of extra funds to do too much, but we just sold the last two piglets from our spring litters and that was enough to get started.  So we headed off to Lowes to get some supplies and we got started!

We knew that we needed all hands on deck, so we called in a couple of our friends to lend a hand and we got started.  First thing, we had to take everything out and get the place cleaned out and sorted.  When Maggie put her workshop together, she never really expected to become a production shop!  So she had a lot of her personal things out there.   And unfortunately, we had also added a bunch of odds and ends in the back end of the shop!  She didn’t want me to take any pictures of it before because she was a little embarrassed!  Poor kid.   She was doing the best she could in a tough environment.  We love that kid and none of us were upset, in fact, we were mostly impressed with her resiliency!

She had a lot of odds and ends of wood left so we worked hard to get that all out and sorted.

This was a bit of the shop before, just a big pile here in the corner of scrap wood that she was going to use to heat the shop as it got colder.

The goal was to install some better ceiling insulation for her, get better lighting, make the space much more comfortable and productive to work in and make it cleaner and easier for her to keep clean.  She really does like a tidy space so I know this area was very frustrating for her.  She just didn’t want to let us know!  But we were ready to spend a few days and make it right for her!  She was pretty happy after she got used to the idea!

Lots of loom dust for sure!!!  We had to really work to get the space all nice and tidy!  She has been super busy!

Starting to get a little better, but still tons of work left to do.  Just getting everything out took the better part of 3 or 4 hours!

Look!  The first nice and tidy corner!  We are getting there!

Sorting everything was tough, because we kept finding all sorts of interesting things!  But we stuck to it and kept working.

Like this little cute bird ornament!  And this cool finger puppet thing that Maggie made in homeschool studies!  

Of course, we had to have some chicken supervision.  Maverick, the rooster, had to come and check it all out.  He approved of the work and went off to look for more work to inspect.

Much nicer!  This area in the back of the shop will be for storage of her raw wood and various bits and pieces.

We got the bright idea of using a leaf blower to clean all the dust and such out of the shop!   It looked like the place was on fire!!!

And we took the time to burn up a bunch of junk and boxes that we really didn’t want to save for winter!   The goal was to get it all nice and tidy and a big pile of junk didn’t fit the gameplan!!!

We started to fill up our truck with metal scraps.  We had a bunch of stuff from around the farm as well, so we just started to fill her up!

Miss Julia blowing off some of the things that were going to be sorted and returned to the shop in some limited capacity!  Thank goodness for friends!!

Wow!  Really making some good inroads to getting the place all nice and tidy!

We moved some of the cabinets around to make it flow a little better…  and then put some drop ceiling boards in to help deflect some of the heat from escaping through the rough roof.  Maybe some day we will be able to really outfit this little space for her, but in the meanwhile, it’s way better!

There had been a big pegboard in the back barn, so it got hung where it could help out!  Justin was a big help as he always is!  We should just adopt him!    I don’t think he would mind.  He could build a little house out back and be a happy camper!

Wow!  How nice this looks….  we set it all under Maggie’s watchful eye and her plan.  We wanted to respect her hard work and how she wanted the place to be.  Now she has a much easier space to store all her fancy woods waiting to become looms and hand tools!

We were all busted after this first day!  A lot of work, but it was good work and felt awesome!

On to day two!!!

We began to bring back in her equipment, working to make sure it was set up to make it easier for her to work smart and easy.  We hung several of the lights that we had bought and it made the space to bright and wonderful!  We had also bought the wood and material to make a great nice work bench as well, but that would be on the third day!

Oh, the pegboard was wonderful!  She could get things up and hanging, ready to be used!

All these scraps got sorted and the ones that just were not good or cracked, they got ready for the wood stove.  She did recover a lot of lovely hardwood for more tools!  That was great!  Like finding money!

Not quite finished, but so much better!  And more efficient!  She’s been in the space now a couple weeks and it has really improved her ability to get orders done and out the door!   And just wait till you see the lovely workbench that she and I built!   I read the instructions and added my two cents, she did all the real work!!  Hey, every job needs a supervisor?  Right!

All in all, it was so worth the time and effort.  It’s so much better for her.  We will keep working on the space…  we needs to get a decent door and a little more insulation around the old garage door.  We will keep as the budget allows!  And here is hoping that the cold winds stay away as long as we can get away with!!!

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