Car Storage Part 6: Welcome and Unwelcome Guests
As regular readers know, I bought an old foundry to store my collection of terrible cars. I knew that rehabbing this facility would be a challenge, but the scale of the project is beyond what I even imagined. Could I really foresee that I’d find a prison shank and four pounds of rotting meat lying on the ground next to my tool pile? (More on that later.)
Let’s start with what’s gone better than I expected. Not long after the deal went through, a friend of mine named Thomas reached out with a need for storage space. Rent sounded good, but another pair of hands sounded even better. Thomas is 21, full of farm-boy knowledge and youthful energy. When time has allowed, Thomas has been glazing windows, sweeping floors, chopping down trees, and moving things in an ever less decrepit direction. The arrangement has been beneficial for both of us.
Another morsel of great news: For a grand total of $200, the foundry now has a 10-hp three-phase air compressor, a lift relocated from another shop, a permanently housed Dodge pickup, a go-kart, and a pit bike to run down to one of the many auto parts stores here in downtown Statesville, North Carolina. With the space, I also planted a mess of watermelon and corn because… why not?
On days when my motorsport engineering day job doesn’t imminently demand hands-on electronics work, I can work from home and squeeze in a short afternoon of foundry improvement. Another factor, which I’ll bury in a paragraph because I’m shy about shouting it from a mountaintop, is that I’m becoming a dad at the end of August. Thus, my office at home has been converted into a nursery. So why not turn the foundry’s foreman’s old digs into my personal workspace?
After an afternoon of vacuuming and getting the old chainfall windows into an operational state, I had myself an office. And with it comes a clear view of my Studebaker commuter parked outside. Ah, the foreman life. Now keep sweeping, you minions!
There may even be some historical preservation grants available for such properties, specifically abandoned commercial and industrial ones. I’m in the beginning stages of archeological exploration of the area, which has already uncovered a narrow gage railway and pulley system behind the building, both of which service the long-defunct coal hopper. I don’t know exactly what to do with these features yet, but the most important thing is to document what’s survived before I make any repairs or modifications. But let’s be real, having a functioning light rail line in the backyard would be sweet no matter what!
It’s not all roses. For one, the roof repair was more intensive and expensive than I’d anticipated, and in a week I ate through several of my future mortgage payment savings. Though it was costly, I now have 1600 square feet of new roof which I do not have to worry about for a long time.
With the shop floor now free from overhead moisture, I was unfortunately able to observe what was coming from the bottom up. The lake was about half the size as it used to be, but that didn’t change how my stomach felt. During the middle of a recent deluge, my trusty trenching shovel and I went on a mission of discovery behind the building. Between the south wall and the railroad tracks was an old storage room. In this small area, barely wide enough to fit through with a shovel, a roofing crew from a previous job filled it completely with roofing material and cases of Mountain Dew bottles. On top of that trash I found several years of silt, mud, and runoff.
After about three hours of digging amid pouring rain, the drainage system on the south wall started flowing again.
The following weekend, I continued my actions along the east wall, nearly reaching the street. I paused at the point of exhaustion, which is when a friendly groundhog apparently cleared the last 50 feet of drainage by making a home inside the drain pipe, thereby excavating all of the Skoal cans, broken sunglasses, and Takis bags into a neat pile. Thanks, nature!
One of my more embarrassing mistakes of late was rushing in to move all of my (and Thomas’) stuff into the foundry prior to properly securing the place. I know, I know, I was warned in the comments: Get a security system. Get a bigger fence. Get a pit bull. Call it optimism about mankind, call it naivete, or call it an invitation to property theft, but two days after moving in, Thomas shot me a text asking why I had emptied my toolbox out into the middle of the floor. Obviously, this was immediately followed by a frantic phone call.
The cop showed up within minutes of Thomas calling, and we found ourselves on speakerphone with the officer as I drove toward the foundry. We were rightfully reprimanded for not having security cameras watching over our cheap tools and garbage vehicles. Fair point.
Our DIY CSI: Statesville yielded the following: The thieves had kicked in a narrow man door that led to a loading area near the railroad tracks. They proceeded to empty the toolboxes and organize everything into piles on the floor. From there, two huge municipal trash cans were filled completely not with heavy valuables, but rather rotten speaker boxes, camp chairs, hydraulic jacks, and car dollies. At some point near the end of this exercise, the robbers made the breakthrough discovery that the cans were too heavy to lift up the 18” step and too wide to fit through the door. Locked in otherwise, they filled their pockets with what they could take and left everything else behind, including a gigantic mess.
After taking inventory of everything in the shop, the only things that I could determine had been stolen were a leaf blower and a 3/8-inch-drive ratchet. Overall, a cheap yet terribly inconvenient lesson to learn.
About two weeks later, I realized that the thieves had left two items behind… so I guess we’re even? Not so much. One of those items was an extremely sharp homemade shank. Yikes. The second thing—which I found after chasing a smell for over a week—was their stolen food stash. Nearly five pounds of chicken tenders, pork chops, and brats had been wrapped in thick cellophane, covered in packing tape, and left atop a rolling cart. The expiration date on this food was nearly 5 weeks prior to the break-in. Don’t do drugs, kids.
It took about two weeks to get everything back in order. Since then we followed all of the officer’s recommendations, including visible security cameras and a fence that makes the whole place look like a correctional facility.
One more bit of good to close this out. Following the felonious actions, Thomas brought a couple of his friends out to help with the cleanup. As it turned out, they needed some rental space, too! Now we have three guys in the foundry at nearly any given time of day or night, working security and mechanic detail. As I quickly check the security cameras while writing this, they’re inside sweeping up and rebuilding a KA24 Nissan motor. As far as I am concerned, that beats out most other local Saturday night activities. I have even more storage renters in the works—the breakeven point for my cost is in sight! And without their help I highly doubt I could manage all of this alone.
We’ve had our stumbles, but the culture we’re building at the old Troutman foundry far outweighs the headaches and handsomely exceeds the material benefits I had originally envisioned. This whole thing might just be crazy enough to work.
***
Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.
Congratulations on the impending fatherhood!
Here, here!!
Years ago I had the idea for this type of place in my own area but was never able to do it. I’m very glad to see someone else making a go of it 🙂
Yes I worked in a part of town like you are in.
You must secure all windows with bars. Improve the doors and door frames. Secure any and all skylights. That is in edition to the fence and dogs.
I used to come in and count the bullet holes in the building and replace many glass panels. We never left much of value there the hood tools were at home.
We did put a laser beam through the building that would easily set off with anyone walking around and a loud bell. Often I would find blood down the wall below the windows they had come in on. That would make me smile to know I hot some revenge.
For the sake of tools and cars. And also your insurance work on the roof and security first.
It is hard to go to bed and wonder what gets hit next. Make like your own castle.
Good thing hyperv6 is here to tell you what to do. Man that guy must be a legend in his own mind right?
But wait – there’s more!
The office area looks cool – even though you may or may not have mentioned that it is hot. But you know what I mean. Your headway is truly impressive, and you can tell by the comments that you have gobs of jealous readers out here. But we’re happy for you (and also for the Mrs., especially regarding the impending parenthood news). By-the-way, I wouldn’t store toolboxes on benches right under a window – too enticing to peepers to want to investigate. But the overall shop and improvements look great and you’re accomplishing things in what seems to be record time (of course, more hands surely help). Looking forward to the next installment already!
-Put the stick-on “bathroom window” glazing on windows unwelcomes could peep in
-security bars on all windows
-all secondary entrances I would put a big metal bar across the door overlapping past the sides of the door frame. Stops the door being kicked in. If the door swings out… switch it or put big brackets on the inside of the door to hold it to said big metal bar*
*you can’t do this to every door as then you can’t get in. So either one man-door has really good locks/protection & visibility or entrance is only via a rollup door with remote.
-Frame in the office space so you can AC the little room for a break from the heat?
Congrats on fatherhood and the cool space with friends.
They will break in if they can see in or not. The glass is for you as a dark building can get depressing.
You could see little where we had our glass but yet they came in.
They will break in anything as most are drug attics and many are homeless so they will go in anyplace they think they can get in.
Even large vents and chimneys need addressed.
Also look to limit roof access. They will go up there for anything.
Do not use Aluminum or anything easy to remove that can be scrapped. They will rip it off the building. Plumbing too.
I grew up in the country. I learned long ago how tough the cities can be when I went to work in those areas. Also if working at night keep gates locked and your head on a swivel.
This stuff anymore goes on even in good cities.
They also knew we had weapons. We also went home at 6 pm. Nothing good goes on after 6 pm in many industrial areas.
Yikes.
The area here isn’t nearly that bad luckily. If I end up needing to take precautions to that level, I won’t be in the building.
So, no drug attics where you live, Matthew? 😉
Buy half a dozen (or more) cheap motion-activated floodlights from Temu or similar. Put some inside, some outside. When lights go on, bad guys prefer to be someplace else. Trim the foliage so there’s a clear space around the building – you don’t want them to have a hiding space.
Replace glass windows with security glass (metal mesh inside) or with Lexan panes. These take more time and exposure than most bad guys are willing to risk. They want a quick, easy in and out, and if it looks like it is going to be tough to get in, and there are security lights everywhere, they’ll try someplace else which looks easier and is less risky for them.
And here’s what I’d do . . . offer free space to a police officer to store/work on THEIR car, and hint that having a police car parked outside at random times might be most welcome. After all, if it is their car inside, it becomes personal.
Now that’s a GREAT idea.
Love the progress. Congratulations!
I’m enjoying this series and the ones about the oddball vehicles.
My uncle had a large industrial yard with warehouses and some stuff sitting outside. He always had 2 pretty mean guard dogs that roamed the property in the off-hours. He had no issues for a lot of years, until one night the dogs came up missing and lots of stuff stolen. But a mean sounding dog bark will do a lot to ward off potential thieves.
Suss out what’s going on here? Ventilation exhaust fan missing from hole in wall. Replacing it would no doubt help with the hot office space.
Matthew, congratulations to you and your (long-suffering, car-widow) wife on the impending birth! Such wonderful news.
Thanks for another wonderful tale of woe, er, I mean wonderful progress towards your future car lot/mechanical shop (you know it will happen…). Sad about the incursion; happy that, yet again, thieves were thwarted by their mental misgivings. You’ve created a wonderful community of like-minded folks and your office looks awesome with the original floors and windows – tough spot to cool, but something tells me you’ll figure that out too! By the way, this article made me go back and re-read some of your Hobby 600 escapades – what a wonderful experience meeting the original owner and family and geeking out over his engineering mastery – great stuff.
All the best to you and good health and comfort to your wife!
I’m so jealous. Not only because of your space, but also a whole bunch of new friends that you’ve made who can help with your cleanup and assist with financing your endeavor. I’m also excited about your future as a dad. It’s a great trip, but sadly one that may cause the articles we get to read to slow to a trickle..
Congrats, Dad-to-be!
And a “Well Done” on building a another place for car people to enjoy.
Your living the dream
So cool to see the vision taking shape! Congrats on the new addition, make sure to set up some kid friendly space in the foundry!
Fantastic circumstances to have renters and helpers in one, neat group. It makes me happy to see the automotive community work together.
My only useful (debatable) input is if you need lots of lights for a good price, the Garage Organization group I frequent swears by the Barrina shop lights available on Amazon. Even after the exchange rate to MooseBucks, they’re a deal for me!