That shed I was cleaning needed one thing really bad, a decent floor. It was already made of concrete but with the years it broke down, revealing the soil and gravel underneath. And also wasn’t level.
So for the last couple of weeks we (my dad and I) worked together and made a new one. The next step is adding some tiles on top of that.
While preparing the existing floor for the new pouring I discovered remnants of the old building.
In its latest years (circa 1970-1980) it was used in a wine bottling operation as a storage room and later my grandad started to build a small studio for my uncle (but that project was cancelled due to things better not to speak of).
Before that, around the 30’s and 40’s, the whole house was a ceramic tile factory. Giant ovens to fire the clay, castings and all that.
As I started to dig the trench for the new waste plumbing I found what looked like the walls of a chamber or well of sorts. The top was made of reinforced concrete and had all the appearance of being a lid.
I tried to break and lift it with very little success. On the other extreme of the room there’s a hole that seemed to be a small opening made on purpose. I dug with my hand but only got sand, gravel and fragments of old tiles.
I gave up as whatever I removed from the floor had to get back and then some more to make a proper base layer for the next one. But I plan on digging further later on.
That hoist was a godsend lately. It helped me move bedroom furniture made of carob and also this old rail that weighs a ton.
During that process both of the galvanized channels I used yielded and I was this close to have everything fall down. But I won at the end.
After making a lot of room on the shed I still had this feeling that the space was under utilized and I started to think of a small raised platform of sorts.
As luck would have it I had some leftovers of C channel from another project and they are perfect to make a frame and put some osb boards.
They are a bit cumbersome to handle by myself so I built a couple of hoists with some sheaves and scraps.
This proved to be extremely useful not only to lift but also to keep everything in place when drilling the wall.
It took a couple of days but I finally managed to make it with a bit of help from my dad.
