Steve Wheeler is adding another 24 feet to his shed. The shed, presently 80 feet long, houses Steve’s Milk Bottle Museum, one of the largest milk bottle museums in the world.
The extension is made of wood, bloom, sweat, and tears. Steve has learned to hate joist hangers.
The shed will allow Steve to add 200 bottles to his collection, which presently consists of 17,500 bottles.
Steve is Mr April in our Calendar. That’s the month when he cleans all of the bottles.
We asked Steve about the maths:
The present shed is 80 feet long, has 17,500 bottles . . . that’s 218.75 bottles per foot.
The additional 24 feet extension will hold only 200 bottles . . . that’s 8.33 bottles per foot.
Why such a big difference?
Steve’s reply:
It’s because at present I only have around 10,000 + bottles on display, hence the need for additional space . . . also. bottles range in base size depending on size of milk quantity held, variation from bottle manufacturers, and progress of sizes over the last 100 years etc . . . also, to make the displays more visually attractive, I “stagger” the shelves to display either quarts or half pints, and sometimes to show a whole family of bottles from the same dairy over the ages, also, the original museum section, the existing extension, and the new extension are all made in different formats with different wall and ceiling heights, giving either more or less shelves on the vertical plane . . . how dull is that ?
Cheers,
Steve
