terry sullivan on sat 13 nov 04
Guess I'll chime in here because the studio / work space thing is most
important to the artist. Without that you can't work much on your stuff.
So here's my expirience:
There are old single and double wide mobil homes all over the darn
place. Here in so. calif. folks will give them to you if you'll haul it
away. Reason is that almost no mobil home park will let you move an old
unit into a park.
I bought a 20 x 50 double wide unit that had been gutted and used as a
storage shop. Cost me $ 3000 for the unit, the moving, and the set up.
I got some laborers and stripped all the cheap paneling from the
interior walls, furred out the studs with 1x2, rewired the whole thing,
put in a new sub pannel, put in windows and a glass sliding door,
stuffed the walls with insulation, and panneled the whole thing with 3/8
OSB (that's a wood pannel made up of tons of large wood chips all mashed
together, Oriented Strand Board). Also attached a 10x12 deck at each
end. Total cost for the labor and materials $ 3500 and about two
weeks work full time. Floor plan: one large room 20 x (aprox) 30, 9x5
hand tool room, 15 x8 hardware/ material storage room, and a 9x9 office
/ design room.
Total cost for the sweetest wood working shop: under $ 7000. Plywood
floors are easy on the feet and easy on dropped tools ( drop a chissle
on concrete and your heart will be in your throat). Additional
utilities and dust collection are easy to run as the whole thing is two
feet off the ground.
Mine is a wood working shop, yours could be for clay, weaving, print
making, painting, whatever.
Could be alot cheaper too. An old single wide mobil home in good
condition can be bought, moved, and set up for $ 1000.
Most could be used as is, with a little cleanning etc., for most things.
Don't need to rewire for most uses and they already have plumbing.
I know not all municipalities / locations would allow such use. However
I have found that country/ rural/ industrial/ agricultural settings are
often ok. Most of the time I would't even ask permission. Just do the
work above code.
BTW- I've done this with several old units. Never had a problem.
My 2 cents.
Respond off list to: tsullivan@nottinghamarts.org. Do not email me
off list to the above header address NCAClay@cox.net as this address
will only recieve posts from the Clayart Listserv.
Terry Sullivan
Nottingham Center for the Arts
www.nottinghamarts.org
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