This weekend, we will continue the glue scraping project. We have been told now by someone who is a carpet expert, that we should use a particular solvent in order to help take the glue off. We may try that this weekend.

It is likely that we will also begin to address plumbing issues this weekend. It looks like many of our usual Colaboratorians will be away for the weekend. Troy, McKenna and I will be there off and on the whole weekend. Come by if you want to help!

When we took possession of the warehouse in early September, it was almost completely unusable to us. The prior occupant, who apparently ran a mechanic service for BMWs, left us piles and piles of parts, oily spots complete with kitty litter on top of them, head lights, hub caps, various chemicals of unknown origin or description, and the nastiest carpet that you may ever have seen. Half of the building was without any power whatsoever, and was musty from disuse. We had a single bank of cabinets and a crappy countertop, which you can see in the pictures, and a manky old electric stove (which is far away from the countertop) for a kitchen. Our bathroom contained two toilets, non-functioning lights, and a tiny shower.

The residents did some initial work when we first took possession of the property, including beginning to remove trash and debris. We quickly figured out that a) we would need a construction dumpster, and b) that the floor was way beyond something that a mop, broom and dust pan would handle.

During the last two and a half weeks in September, Co-Lab became entirely Alchemy-focused. Everyone brought their signs, crafts, projects, meetings, plans, etc. and we all worked on things together. The ‘lab was full of sawdust, power tools and really bad PBR in a keg.

Once Alchemy was over, the residents reclaimed the space and started doing the heavy cleaning. So far in the last week or so, we have:

• cleaned out the pile of nastiness (and kept the cool parts) that was in the event space
• cleaned out the “entry” room and set up the wood in there for future purposes
• gotten out nearly all of the random garbage and car parts from the future residential area
• pulled up the carpet in the existing residential (nasty, and apparently required every ounce of muscle strength for the guys who did this)
• contemplated the glue left under the carpet (there’s a funny story here)
• began the scraping of said glue
• powerwashed, soaked and re-powerwashed the floor in the residential area
• set our live-in architect to work on measurements and layout plans

So the glue. The grand plan when the nasty carpet was installed was to put down some kind of glue and just glue it directly to the concrete floor. So, when the carpet was removed, a gross, swirly pattern of glue was left on all the floors in the previous residential. First, Troy rented a power tool that was supposed to essentially act as a big sander to clean it up. That didn’t work at all. Then we started considering solvents, which would really have been a nightmare. Fortunately, in a stroke of weird luck, water got on the floor in the main former living area, and Lovelace happened to notice that the color of the floor changed where the water was. When he touched the glue, he noticed that it had gotten really soft. It became easily scrapable.

Plans changed at that point. We got a long handled scraping tool, and have started wetting down the floor and scraping up all the glue. It’s a ridiculously hard job, but kind of fun, and it’s working very well.

Upcoming work plans:

Keith recently sent out the work schedule for today through next week.

Our first big building project is to build the extension of the existing residential wall, which will officially divide the residential space from everything else. This is an 18′ wall, and will include studding and drywalling.

Finish pressure washing floors in new residential area (and also Southeast Decompression meeting)

-Thursday: Chalk Line the locations of the new walls and finish scraping the glue off the existing residential area

-Friday: Start building the main residential wall

-Saturday: begin drywalling the Main residential wall facing the main artist space. Also begin the lower section walls of the residential pods.

-Sunday-Monday-Tuesday: Continue building walls and drywalling.

We are also in the process of creating a real website (rather than a Wordpress blog) for Co-Lab, which will include a calendar, work information, how to purchase an artist space, how to get involved with the project, and a forum for what we are seeking to find/buy/get for the space as well as what we’re seeking to part with. For now, you get a Wordpress blog though

We are in the process of finding and obtaining:

1. restaurant quality kitchen items (used, unless we find a great deal on something somehow)

• stove
• oven
• several work tables (8 ft, probably, and stainless)
• kitchen quality metal shelving (several sets)
• cool kitchen stuff like a steam table

2. furniture. We need some couches for having around. Comfort at Co-Lab! We also need tables, like end tables and stuff.

3. lighting. I’d consider anything, but we mostly want things like LED lights. The purple ones they have for Halloween at Walmart are freaking AWESOME, and I want them everywhere. I’m sure Lisa would agree, but maybe not everyone else

Other news:

Troy and I have obtained boxes, and will begin packing up our house in Acworth tomorrow. We have to be out by October 31, so we will be moving as soon as possible. I am really ready to be at the ‘lab full time now. I hate this transitional time. It will be weird, because the pods won’t be ready for a while yet, so any residents living there will kind of be doing the slumber party thing for a little while. It is going to be crazy and fun! I think Keith is gearing up to be full-time there soon too. I very much look forward to a much shorter commute to school!