The warehouse

Got a call from my friend Zac on Saturday morning. He had just come back from a holiday in Thailand (lucky bastard). He asks me if I'm doing anything. I told him I would be free in the afternoon. He invites me over to check out his new pad. I accept the invitation.

Zac has just moved into a huge old warehouse, right beside a railway track near Anstey station. I get off the train and he meets me halfway. We walk back to the warehouse together and he leads me through the door and into the warehouse. I surveyed the scene before me....It was absolutely amazing. An old rusty wrought iron chandelier dangled from the ceiling in one corner. Across a wall on the opposite side, hung a series of paintings leading towards the bathroom, toilet and communal kitchen. It was like a mini art gallery. My eyes, however, are drawn back towards another wall plastered with the black and white photo of a huge palm tree , its fronds reaching up towards the 5 meter high ceiling and arching back towards the ground, beckoning visitors to enter. Zac guides me under the frond towards a doorway to the rest of the warehouse, pointing out the newly constructed bed rooms on the right that were still in various stages of completion. These belonged to the other housemates. We soon reach a space at the back corner that was a room without walls. I quickly realise this wasn't just a social get-together. Piles of wood were laid out according to size. Each had already had brackets screwed into them. The task: to build Zac's room.

I'm no good with construction. Still, despite my protests and assurances that the project would be better off without my involvement, I soon find myself bolting together lengths of wood. Zac's vision is an ambitious one. Not satisfied with vertical walls, he wants to build a dome inside the warehouse. Well...not a full dome; just a section of a dome (which is by no means an easy task). We get to work. The pieces start to fit into place like a jigsaw. Zac meticulously checks his drawings (I noticed he had earlier implemented a design on his laptop). We make do with what we have....old bits of rope to tie the structure in place as it began to take form (the idea is that it would eventually be free standing), a purple sofa and an old yellow velvet Louis-style high backed arm chair (to stand on to bolt the higher higher beams into place), and the dodgiest, most wobbly ladder you can imagine. Thank God one of Zac's other friends is an industrial abseiler and doesn't mind scaling the heights to get to those hard to reach places. By early evening, I had to leave to get ready for a birthday dinner. By then, only a mere 3 hours into our construction, Zac's vision was starting to come together. I give Zac a big hug. He thanks me for helping. I walk out the warehouse and head towards the station, eagerly anticipating the next visit to check out the finished product.