The “Shed Vac” was a fun bit of world building. Originally it was just going to be a handheld device, like an electric razor with a mini vacuum on the end. There were two problems with the idea though. For one thing, it looked so puny in the rough draft. It was hard to believe such a small thing could make a noise loud enough to drown out the sound of Ine knocking on the door. Secondly, I wasn’t convinced it was clear enough that it was both a shedding brush and a vacuum. I tried making the end bulkier, sort of like a dirt devil with the shed brush on the end, but it started to get unwieldy, and it seemed unlikely that such a device would ever be that practical.

Making it a vacuum attachment solved the issues however. It would allow the large vacuum cleaner to appear in the scene, which both communicates the purpose of the device and makes it more believable that it really could be loud enough to cause Chris not to hear Ine’s knocking. The final touch was adding the bathroom counter with the Shed Vac attachment box on top.