Sunday, June 13, 2010

Random Stuff 06-13-10

A few days ago I posted a photo of an old WWII era metal building currently being transformed in to something modern and pretty cool. Old Fool and Steve A. correctly identified this type of building as a Quonset hut. Old Fool weathered a typhoon in a Quonset hut on Okinawa in 1959. I did a little research and learned that these buildings were originally manufactured during WWII at Quonset Point in Rhode Island. The military needed buildings that could be easily shipped and erected without skilled labor. There's not much too them, just a metal shell with a wood floor. Looking at the now visible interior of the hut in my photo, I was surprised at how spacious it was. As usual, I wondered what it would take to convert one of these old huts into a home. I'm always thinking about converting stuff into housing; shipping containers, storage buildings, missile silos, opal mines.

Copy and paste the address on the right in Google maps if you'd like to see the building in it's previous state. 1008 Foch St, Fort Worth, TX, United States

Steelmaster USA sells affordable steel buildings that can be used for housing. They look like the old huts but are constructed by attaching a series of steel arches.


If you need a little more space than a hut affords, there are still a few of these missile silos around. This one is near Abilene, Texas.

This Girl's Bike: I like finding new bike blogs, especially bike blogs by people new to the world of cycling. Dreamlet (I don't know her real name) is a new fellow cyclist exploring the streets of L.A. on her new Bianchi.

I think all Bianchi's should be celeste green.


Geography Pillows: My wife saw these on Apartment Therapy. They're not cheap, they're hand stitched, but they are interesting. There's one for every state and most major cities.

The Austin pillow. They even included Mr. Armstrong.

Fort Worth

Japanese wave pool:

This can't be safe. Do you think there is any urine in that pool?

8 comments:

  1. There is a quonset hut near my moms house that was a shop of some sort. A few years ago it was for sale and we considered buying and converting to a house. We decided against it and its for lease now. Whenever we see it we still think how cool it could be.

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  2. I would imagine it has a strong ammonia smell but they never have to add water.
    All water is somebody or somethings pee but there are too many screamers there.
    I would like to live underground leaving the surface wild but I think that will have to be in another life.

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  3. Interesting stuff.
    Round here there are a lot of german bunker complexes from world war II. Transforming a part of them into housing (or at least re-using them for something) would be cool. Still, those structures are very interesting to explore.

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  4. Thank you for featuring our Hodgdon Powder Company steel building photo in your Quonset Hut post! We have quite a few metal buildings in Texas that you can check out on your adventures around town. Folks use them for all types of things like garages, houses, farm buildings, storage sheds, airplane hangars, carports, RV covers, etc. Check them out here!
    http://www.steelmasterusa.com/steel-buildings-in-texas

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  5. I've seen structures similar to the Quonset Hut around here, mostly seem to be used for agricultural purposes, storing equipment and stuff. I don't know if they are exactly the same as the one pictured, or a(somewhat) more modern equivalent.

    I have to admit, I wish my recently-acquired Bianchi were Celeste. It's a nice blue, but I'm with you ... all Bianchis should be celeste!

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  6. Frank and I just saw that building the other day when we were on our way to La Familia. We both noticed how cool it looked. Any idea what it is going to be?

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  7. Ashley-I don't know what it's going to be. I was thinking about asking Kevin at Fortworthology.com. I'm surprised he hasn't mentioned it yet.Maybe he has and I just missed it.

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  8. Thanks for the shout out! My university (UC San Diego) had some Quonset Huts. I wonder if they were the real deal or if they were just inspired by Quonset Huts. By the way my name is Venus. I don't mind if people know it I just didn't publish under my real name because I didn't want my blog to come up first if people were googling me for professional purposes.

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