Oxford Fencing Salle — Week 4

The building is ship-shape, and ready for phase 3 to commence.

Here is where Walter fell through the ceiling like an incontinent meteor. He didn't fall all the way through, but that didn't stop him from screaming.

Ryan (right) and Kevin (not pictured) started their epic salle-journey on this day. They began putting in as many as 10 hours at a time. They are crazy. We're hoping they pass all their classes.

The spars over the front office have been taken off. They are great pieces of lumber. We will use two of them for the stairway. As for the rest — we don't know what we'll do with them. Benches?

Here are the supports for the 2nd story, they are like wooden I-beams. They were bought new, and cost a whopping three-figure sum. But they are incredibly strong and resilient, and required by code. When we pack the balconies for our grand opening, we will be glad we used these.

Phase 3 — the first office is in peices.

Participants: Sarah, Kevin, Ryan, Trey, Vicki, Doc, Brooks, and Walter (a bit).

We're leaving the bathroom there — due to building codes, we need a functioning toilet at all times. The bathroom will be demolished when we build the new ones at the back of the building.

The view from the front door again. It's even more opened up.

To the right of the picture, near the green ladder, is where Ryan accidentally jammed 2 inches of wood splinter up under his thumbnail. That's when we found out what a complainer he is.

The wiring took a lot of Doc's energy.

He was exhausting to watch, so we had to take a lot of breaks.

Here is a picture of only some of the insulation we have lying around. No asbestos, fortunately.

It's a soft, itchy, luxuriant fibreglass bed.

Message from the future: One week from this time, we're taking down the big metal wall to the right of the picture. That pile of insulation constitutes our "landing zone" should we fall off the fully-extended ladders. It's 40 feet to the top of the wall, and the wall is bolted on with nuts. It's risky to take it down.

Trey came by with his flatbed trailer, donating a sofa, a loveseat, a chaise lounge, and an ottoman.

They are very comfy and easy to fall asleep on.

Those blocky pink things are His-n-Hers shower stalls, bought new. Inside, they're smooth and white.

The Sanyo TV is a donation from Sean. It doesn't work, but if we can fix it, it's ours.

The first of the new construction! This is the left wall of the women's area.

Since we have so much insulation, we are adding an extra layer outside the frame. Later, we will stuff more insulation between the studs. The bathrooms will be very well insulated: In the end, that wall's cross-section will be sheet-metal, insulation, insulation, studs+insulation, paneling, grime.

This is the kitchen sink. Every massive renovation needs one. It will go in the lounge area.

One of these windows will be used in the office area.

During tournaments, directors will walk up, and hand their pool/bout sheets through the window to the bout committee barricaded inside the office.

Little AJF comes to visit the salle. She is the youngest fencer to enter the new building. Her prior exposure to fencing was when she was a few weeks old — she posed inside a fencing mask.

Doc, Kevin, Ryan put up the walls in rapid order.

They make incredible progress through sheer determination and long hours. It was as if they were continually ingesting ginsing somehow.

The building is getting cluttered.

In a few days, Walter will spend from 6:30-9am cleaning this up. Then it will get messy, and then Doc will clean it up.

Here is the open area, plus the lingering bathroom.

This is where we will lay the first of the fencing floor. When that is down, we can start doing lessons in the building.

We are expecting 8,000 square feet of 1/2" plywood any day now. We have a secret plan to make the plywood springy and durable.

We are also trying to figure out the cheapest way to get grounded strips — metallic paint on the floor? We don't know.

Doc spent several valuable days trying to measure out the stairway.

Sunday, February 13th, 2005

Kevin starts on the big metal wall. If he falls, he will try to land in the insulation. If he misses the insulation, we will name a strip after him.

Ta-Da!!

The lounge floor is created. It's as solid as a rock. It will hold all the couches, some cabinets, the kitchen sink, a water heater, and a TV+Playstation, as well as several dozen relaxing fencers.

The stairway is to code, and very fun to walk up and down. Vicki nailed all the steps on.

It seems like this sprang up very quickly, but in reality we just forgot the camera for several days.

Walter finally got to use his table-saw, and made the risers for the steps.

Soon, we will cover this gorgeous product of community labor in raggedy old carpeting.

The view of the lounge from the top of the stairs.

When the carpet goes in, all these couches will have to get lifted around.

Don't flop back onto that red couch!

Standing near the edge of the lounge made us realize that a railing is a high priority.

Imagine watching a fencing tournament from the lounge — it's a commanding view!

Kevin working the metal wall, see how scary it is?

In the background, you can see the neatly stacked lumber.

Between the lumber and the sheet metal, we will have enough extra resources to make a shed out back. That's where the washing machine will go.

Going down the stairs. These stairs work in both directions.