Spontaneous Construction '15 is almost here!

 

SponCon's coming!  This year celebrates over ten years of Spontaneous Construction, Home ReSource's annual festival of creative reinvention.  

It is my favorite event of the year- a day devoted to building something with materials found at Home ReSource.  A day when all I have on my calendar is to build something with our team.  And this year, our team (Butterfly Properties) will have our missing teammate Barry back!  We were the first team to register. 

Every year is a struggle to build something in the allotted time; seven hours goes by really quickly.  Each year we endeavor to make something smaller and quicker.  That never works.  Just the other day, Barry and I were discussing a couple of project ideas for SponCon, and he suggested we build both.  At first I laughed, but then I said, "sure".  We both figure fun is secondary, work comes first.

It is always a good opportunity to see  Barry (he lives in Idaho, and we don't see each other as much as when he lived in Montana).  So on September 19, we will get to stand next to each other, and work side by side all day, probably without any breaks, wearing hearing protection and eye protection, and not mutter a single sentence to each other.  Then at the end of the day, we will say how exhausted we are and how much fun we had together.  WTF?  Maybe we need a new hobby.

Team Butterfly Properties, circa 2011

Team Butterfly Properties:

Marilyn:  Work site custodial engineer, public outreach coordinator, chief information officer, paint application specialist (if necessary)

Marilyn, paint application specialist, inspects her work.  Acceptable!

Barry: Chief Welding Operation Officer, Chancellor of Fabrications, Woodworker

Barry at his happiest.  Getting it done.

David (me):  designer, vice welder,  woodworker, field marshal, resourcing logistician

No time to smile for the camera

So, what will we build?  We don't know yet, but it will be for the garden!

In the last four years our creations have been finalists, and we were fortunate to take home the grand prize in 2012.  All of our projects have used junk inventory from Home ReSource, be we especially endeavor to use stuff that otherwise does not sell well or at all.

We have made, a mobile garden cloche (my favorite project),

 a garden table and chairs made from garden tools, 

 

an outdoor garden shower,  

and last year Marilyn and I made a potting bench.

Come down and see us and the other contestants on September 19, but you will have to talk to Marilyn, the chief information offcer, because Barry and I will be too busy catching up with each other.

Barrry and me: 7 hours of building side by side and never said a word to each other.