A haunted cabinet shop + how to get unstuck when you are overwhelmed on a project

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[00:00:26] Eric Goranson: Welcome to around the house. This is where we talk home improvement every single week. Thanks for joining us. This is our midweek special. Is where we talk about the stuff that, uh, didn't make it into last weekend show and isn't gonna make it into this next weekend show.

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[00:01:03] Eric Goranson: But these are my experiences, and every single one of them had multiple people witness them. So it wasn't just me, it was a whole group of people, at least two or three people in almost every instance. So I was working in Tacoma, Washington, down on the waterfront. Now specifically the address was 2105 South Sea.

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[00:01:52] Eric Goranson: They'd been there for a long time. That was a family run company, but this is in my days when I was kind of helping businesses get their lives turned around and [00:02:00] try to make 'em profitable. And then I'd move on to another one. And this was exactly one of those. So when I started, I had a multiple people tell me, Hey, just, you know, this building's haunted and.

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[00:02:34] Eric Goranson: This is where we built all the cabinetry. And it was in the building kind of next door, which was I think 2107. South C street. That door that was a double swing door, so it swung in, swung out kind of like a a a restaurant door or anything else. Went downstairs. Now this door set there, h stopped to Hing stop and went, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

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[00:03:18] Eric Goranson: And I went, Ah, holy hell. This is gonna not be good. So a little bit later on. I'm sitting there and I'm closing up at the end of the day, seven o'clock. It's dark outside, so it means it's winter and I'm getting ready to punch the code in for the alarm system because this is a shop in downtown Tacoma, so people would like to break in steel tools, all those different things.

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[00:04:01] Eric Goranson: So there was a lot of people working in this building in a cabinet shop. That's where the admin offices were. Well, because you could pop up on the room of the warehouse next door and bust in the building through the windows. We had tons of motion sensors and glass sensors and stuff upstairs in case somebody got in that way.

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[00:04:48] Eric Goranson: And I tell you what, that was pretty dang wild. And I looked over to, uh, the designer I'm with, and she goes, What are you waiting for? Let's get the hell [00:05:00] outta here. And we punched it. What was the crazy part is during this whole time it was happening, if someone had been up there, it wouldn't have been saying ready.

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[00:05:31] Eric Goranson: That was the wild one, got out the door in this same building. We had this, um, you know, the history of this building. First, the basement, Let me step back and tell you the building history. It had been a fire, you know, back in the turn of the century. I'm not sure if anybody had been killed there. This was a building that was built.

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[00:06:13] Eric Goranson: There could have been people smuggling people in and out. And I tell you what, if you know the Pacific Northwest well, There's a reason why they called it Shanghai. That means you got stolen, taken out and put into indentured servitude on a ship going overseas to China, which means you have been Shanghai.

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[00:06:58] Eric Goranson: And then, uh, Vern, the [00:07:00] shop owner, his dad, who at that time was pretty elderly, had a sign shop in there that he had had where he made signs. And so there was like poster board and it was very old school sign shop where he would make lettering and things like that. There was this stack leaning up against the brick wall.

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[00:07:48] Eric Goranson: The bottom slipped out like it was a DECA cards. No, no, no, no. It tipped the other way. So it went out like a [00:08:00] Deca cards flipping over, upside down. And then they went out like a stack of cards. And so the piece that was the first one out. Was the top one, not the bottom one, and you could see it flip over.

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[00:08:36] Eric Goranson: And Verne the owner, loved to play piano, but like everything in that building, it wasn't very well maintained. And so this piano had, well, it was really at tune, so it was like the d and e keys were out. They were just way flat. So it was very distinctive when that played. And there were other keys that were a little flat as [00:09:00] well.

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[00:09:23] Eric Goranson: And we sat there and went, What is going on? There was a message, Message flash. On the answering machine and now this answering machine doesn't have another way to go in. It didn't have a digital in. This was a pretty basic answering system. And so what's crazy about this is this answering system had this like four minute message on it that it sound like you were a 1920s, 19, you know, teens kind of bar speakeasy club.

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[00:10:22] Eric Goranson: So for a decade, me and my buddy thought each one of us had punked each other on it. Nope, not sure how that stuff happened, but, uh, you know, this isn't a paranormal show, but this was a crazy time working in this building and, uh, there were no easy explanations for it. Now talking to Clyde Lewis in years past, and I've told him these stories, he said that, uh, yeah, that place was haunted.

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[00:11:06] Eric Goranson: And take a look at it. I want to hear your ghost stories down below in the Facebook comments. I think this is gonna be really fun to see what they are and uh, I would have a lot of fun seeing what those are, and I'm sure you would too, and that could be kind of interesting. But now these buildings have turned into, You know, old time woodworking to finish that story went outta business.

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[00:11:50] Eric Goranson: And that's exactly what happened. So a year later I got to watch my desk and everything else get, uh, auctioned off online when the bank took that place back and over. And, uh, [00:12:00] it was in really great shape when we left it. But, uh, unfortunately he went backwards into those bad habits and it was gone. Now the other thing is now there's an insurance company in there.

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[00:12:32] Eric Goranson: So that was pretty fascinating. And the right across the street was the Heidelberg Brewery, which was pretty cool. And Heidelberg has come back now, but um, that beer has been revived in Tacoma, Washington. That was a very west coast, northern. Kind of beer and unfortunately we're part of that wine. Uh, part of that brewery was, there's now a Holiday Inn Express and Suites right there.

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[00:13:15] Eric Goranson: Now I had a listener question Come in. This'll be subject number two of this one. They wanted to know how do you get started on a remodeling project when you feel overwhelmed, like your house has got so many projects that you can't even get started because you're basically frozen in place. Cuz there's so much to do, you don't even know what to start.

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[00:14:03] Eric Goranson: So find yourself a little project that's gonna look good. That's a quick, easy one. Maybe paint a room. Paint a bathroom, which is harder than paint in a bedroom. Do some little things that make an instant impact so you can feel like you got something accomplished. I've had that happen before. It could be as simple as painting base trim around the living room, and all of a sudden you're like, Oh, that made a difference.

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[00:14:59] Eric Goranson: And then [00:15:00] start breaking that down into little projects. Maybe you've got that second bathroom that you've always wanted to do and you don't know how to get started. Well, maybe it's going in there and taking some of the junk outta there, getting that going. Maybe you've got a garage or shop that is completely stacked full of everything.

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[00:15:37] Eric Goranson: And that's a good start. So you get that visual win cuz we all wanna see that visual win And then you can go through and uh, have something a little bit more enjoyable and that will help motivate you get going on the rest of the project. And that is what makes us fun, is getting those little wins so you can sit there and enjoy.

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[00:16:18] Eric Goranson: If you wanna get ahold of me, head over to around the house online.com and you can fill out the contact us and I will get back to. So if you're stuck on something, get ahold of me. We'll have some fun, and I'll get you lined up with the correct order so you don't do something twice. All right everybody.

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[00:16:52] Eric Goranson: Have a great rest of the week, everybody. Enjoy the Halloween next week. That's what the first part of this episode was. Some [00:17:00] Halloween fun. And again, thanks for listening. to around the

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