Skeletons in the Closet

To anyone who may not know, I have spent much of the last month moving into my new apartment at the Millbrook School.  That said, it is not the most up-to-snuff place in terms of finishing work. So, being that there are few things I love more than carpentry and the associated tinkering, I have been spending much of my time redoing moldings, pulling excess nails and screws, etc, etc.

That being as it is, I have done lots of projects in the past, be them professional, or just helping my family in the house. But, every now and then something really cool is found during a project. The first example of this was when we moved into our house on Sunnyside.  The basement had a dividing wall, and due to some... structural irregularities... the floor above was sort of sagging, and thus the dividing wall was creating a ridge in the upper floor. So, long story short, we added some supports and rigidity, so that we could remove the troublesome wall. n the process of removing said wall, we found within it an old bayonet. It is now hanging on the workshop pegboard.

Last summer we began to demolish/rebuild our back porch. One of the first steps was removing the roof, so that we could remove the support beams without dropping what they supported onto our head. That would have been unfortunate... to say the least. So, when I cut through the roof and pulled off the plywood, I found an ancient slide-square with a build in miniature level. This is one of the tools that I find very useful in many construction projects. I in fact already owned and used one of my own. With a bit of work, we rubbed it down, cleaned it off, and it still works, is square, and completely legible.

So, from these two examples I think its clear that skeletons, or memories from the past in a sense, are often found when one digs deep enough in "closets". But, that brings me back to my current project. In my apartment there are 3 sets of drawers built into the walls. Unfortunately, they all bothered me. When pushed in, some where twisted and not straight, some sagged, some could be pushed in 2-3 inches too far and some stuck out an inch or two. So, I set about reworking the frames and adding spacers so that all the drawers were straight, even and functional. Now, the first step to this project is pulling the drawers out of the wall, which is quite easy. It was on my third and final set of shelves that I pulled out and in the bottom, I found myself a LOT of sawdust, a hanger, an instant coffee packet wrapper, and a full and intact skeleton of a bat.

I mean really... How often do you see a full and complete skeleton of a bat?!? It's awesome! A little bit gross and/or disconcerting... but awesome! So, always check your closets... you'll never know what you'll find. :)