The clear the space weekend in early Nov was a great success. Thanks to everyone involved. If you’ve been to the space since, you’ll notice a lot less clutter on floors and shelves – but there’s still some way to go.
I propose a day in the New Year where we all make an effort to attend, sort, clear, label, organise, and if necessary dispose of old, unwanted, and abandoned things from the space.
2 January is a Sunday, 3 is a bank holiday Monday, and I’m assuming people will be sick of the sight of their families by then. It might be the case that people are still away visiting others. Shout below if you think other dates might work better.
Potential areas for clearout/re-org include:
The left-hand-side of the old storage space behind the bar
The walls of shelves surrounding the main area
The miscellaneous communal items in the members’ large storage area (paint, BBQ, etc.)
So any suggestions, comments, offers of help are more than welcome.
For info I’ve got some paint stored under the bench in the cnc room and some stored near the elevator (white for walls and ceiling / red for floors). Please don’t chuck that out since it’s the good stuff
The was very brief talk about trying to have a ‘paint the space’ kinda day. So far think you’ve been one of the very few to paint the floors/ceilings. Be good to have a day where other help
General paint for the walls though we should just start using, plenty of bare block walls that could do with some colour
One thing to watch out for when it comes to the ceilings and the floor is how thick the paint is. Also for the ceiling a lot needs scraping off first.
Originally we tried using some cheap stuff but it ended up being too thin so dripped too easily and needed multiple coats which was a pain.
Afterwards we moved to the thicker stuff which I think is the Dulux weather-shield. This tends to just need the one coat so is a lot quicker and easier to put up.
The problem is though there isn’t much in the way of colour for that stuff
Painting is a fun activity that’s quite inclusive and conducive to chat. Shall we broaden the scope of the day to include that?
I wasn’t planning to throw any of the paint out, don’t worry. Just needs stacking on some shelving in a neat way as it’s one of the more useful things we have stowed away.
Sorry, misread, “don’t” use PVA as a sealer, get a proper sealer for plaster surfaces before painting, if you can for where it’s peeling too, gives the paint something to stick to…
It was the reason we’ve been using the thicker masonry paint, since that way it’s just a single coat and you don’t need any sealer afterwards so it’s pretty simple.
It just binds anything underneath to the wall / ceiling.
although you still have to scrape off some of the more looser dangly bits.
I put up a bunch of posters for this tonight. Hopefully we get a good turnout. People don’t need to commit to two full days (or even one full day) but it would be good if we could start listing out jobs here and have a big to-do list for the day. Then when people turn up, they can be given jobs.
If you do that, you need to leave a gap in the damp proof paint 150mm to 200mm from the top, so the wall can breathe, otherwise it will saturate and eventually pour/run through, trust me when I say it makes more of a mess than you’d realise.
You’ll find instructions to that effect on most tins of damp-proofing paint
I’d be inclined to run a dehumidifier in the lab for an extended period before considering damp-proofing too, reduce the saturation as much as possible, or you’ll compound the issue
