18th century shop found intact

[Jim Kirkpatrick]

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/duxbury/2012/11/25/eighteenth-century-woodworker-shop-found-duxbury-said-one-kind/uzWst9in35bHgVoobDS5xK/story.html?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed5

[Todd Burch]

very cool!

[george wilson]

That is VERY interesting!! About OLD places,when we were driving in a very remote area in North Carolina in the 60's,we came across a very old country store high in the mountains. It was about the size of a single car garage. The old wooden interior was not unlike the shop you just linked to.

On the shelves were still old,unused brown shoe boxes with original hook button shoes from the 19th.C.! No printing on them at all,save the sizes!! I was pretty tired out by that time,but the old shoes is all I can really recall 50 years later. No telling what is still out there in the sticks. But,for a building like the one here to have survived in a city is pretty incredible!

It looks pretty dark,and must have been a miserable place to see small work in,but people back then knew no better,probably hovering around Betty lamps to see their work. The old Dominy shop now in Winterthur looks similar. Never any money wasted on paint to make the interior brighter. I know from my own setting up of shops that white paint makes a BIG difference,even in lighted shops. In the Toolmaker's shop,against a back wall was a 16' long plywood tool hanging area. I painted it gray. The whole area,even with the overhead lights was rather dark. I went back and painted it white,which made a huge difference. Imagine working in the old shop with dirty,dark,dull walls and ceiling. We always depended upon windows a lot in Williamsburg. It would get pretty miserably dark in the Winter,and we did have white walls,at least!! And,benches against the large windows.

[Jeff Bartley]

That's an incredible story. I sure hope the shop is restored!

[Karl Andersson]

Peter Follansbee has been working with a team to catalog and preserve this shop - he has at least two articles on his blog with more detailed pictures and descriptions, if you're interested (no old tools laying about though). He wasn't able to disclose the location when he wrote, but it's the same place. I guess now they will work at doing something with it. Mostly what is left of the shop is some benches, halves of leg vises, a semi-complete lathe and some tool racks and shelves. The details of the structure itself are pretty interesting as well - all joints custom-fitted, "gunstock" stud columns. etc.

[Dan Carroll]

George, you are right on the how dark it is and what a little white paint will do for a space. I looks like the windoews have been closed up and once they are opened it might be a bit brighter. I wonder what the age of the tree are around it?