| Who - I am Shawn McHatten, born in New Brunswick Canada in 1960. Since a small boy I have been interested in ... well... EVERYTHING . From old cars to electronics, from chemistry to civil engineering, from biology to politics. I had envisioned myself as some mad scientist, toiling away in my lab, designing a better world. Then along came a family and most of that flew out the window with the responsibilities of life. But the dream of owning my own lab never died. |
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When and What -
In the fall of 2005, I read a small piece in the paper about the village of Welsford building a new firehall and a tender
came out to tear down the old one. I had talked to a few people over the years who had bought these old buildings,
moved them and renovated to suit their own purposes. I was curious as to how one might tackle this particular job
and for fun started calling friends and family to see if it could be done. It was supposed to be just a mental
exercise. I never planned on actually doing it. Until I started to get a lot of "Well, yeah, it might be able to
be done but YOU shouldn't". That rarely slowed me down on any of my other projects. Finally in a fit of madness I
put my bid in...all the while hoping..."please don't pick me". However ... they did.
So in Sept of 2005 I started one of the largest de-construction projects I have ever done. We had 15 days to clean the lot of the building... ALL of it. Measuring 30ft by 40ft, a story and a half high we had our work cut out for us. But with a lot of help from family and friends we managed to have it off the site in 8 days and the concrete floor that remained swept clean enough to eat off of. . See below for how it was done and the list of the many people I owe my deepest gratitude to. Over the next 2 or 3 years we put it back together as a 30x40 TWO story shop. Finally allowing me to fulfill a lifelong dream. The pictures on the home page will take you to all the different areas I am working on. |
| Where - The shop is located on 4 acres in the country just outside Saint John NB. |
| Why - There are lots of different reasons why I decided to do this now in my life. But the two biggest ones are, because I wanted to ... and ...like almost all my projects... just to prove that I could. |
| How - The how part of this is much too long for this short introductory page. If you are really interested in all that we went through go here. |