[joe rusz]

I clipped this gas station image from a calendar showing Coca Cola signs painted on old buildings in the South. Should make a neat, small model, which I've mocked up in cardboard. This time, no fancy stuff:just Precision Plastic siding and Grandt Line windows, and maybe a custom door, since it's pretty simple (just a slab of wood). I can't decide if the station should be elevated, as shown, or sitting on the ground.

OK, that was supposed to be my last building project. But today, I went to a lunch at Rancho Los Alamitos, which is in Long Beach, CA and near our home. This adobe homestead and the seven acres it sits on was originally part of a Spanish land grant and consisted of 300,000 (yes, three hundred thousand!) acres! Anyway, on this remaining property there are live animal, numerous buildings, including one incredible barn with a cupola that runs lengthwise down the building's roof. I gotta model this, once I find some time to photograph and measure it. In the home itself, once owned by the Bixby family and deeded to the city, you can see what life was like a long time ago, as all of the many rooms are as the were a century or so ago. There's a 1921 GE refrigerator that is still in use! They don't build 'em like they used to.
Stay tuned for photos of the barn, probably in June.

Meanwhile, a small gas station--

 

[Torby]

A place with some character. I like it, though it'd be a little modern for the Asylum Valley.

 

[Torby]

You know, I think I stopped at that place. Early 80's and I was coming back from Southern Oklahoma. Somehow, I couldn't find an entrance to I44 in OK City. I knew 66 went the same way, so I took the senic route. Stopped for a few minutes at this little station and got a 7Up. Found an entrance to 44 about 1/2 way to Tulsa.

 

[joe rusz]

Torby, I'd love to see the real thing, although 1980...I'm thinkin' it's long gone. When I built the cardboard mockup of the front wall, I just kinda eyeballed the illo, counting clapboards, then positioning my two Grandt Line windows until they looked right. It's tough to work from a painting because the perspective is skewed. But I think I got it right, including the roof pitch. I think I'll cut out the walls and roof, then build the thing on our so-called "vacation," or whatever it is when you are retired but not spending the day working around the house. BTW, I have other images from the same calendar--some general stores, a couple of covered bridges and some barns, all painted with Coca Cola signs. The artist was commissioned by Coke to do this. Got the calendar real cheap at Borders because it was January, and who wants to buy an "old" calendar in a new year?

 

[wchasr]

Joe,
Once again you have picked a pretty generic building. There is of course a similar building not too far from here in Richburg (Town of Wirt) that is closed more than it is open. Some of the details are a bit different of course. The huge storm shutters are not there for instance.

A nice project and pretty simple too!

Chas