americanthunder
Member
For pretty much all of my adult life I wanted a bigger garage. Life, Moving, Jobs, businesses, and kids always seemed to get in the way. This last move to the Tucson area I ended up with the smallest garage since my first home 20 years ago, a 20x20 two car that barely houses our two full size trucks and left very little space for anything else. When I started my business I built a 10x20 shed but that was quickly outgrown, especially when my wife started storing her holiday decorations in there!
For the past several years I have been renting a space for my business and last summer I looked at how much I had paid in rent and realized I could have built my own building for what I had paid. Suddenly a light bulb went off in my head...THATS HOW YOU SELL IT TO THE WIFE DUMMY!
So after mustering up the courage I went to the wife and started to lay it out but she stopped me in the middle and said "Honey, you've always wanted a big garage, you work hard, you deserve it." While I think she was sincere (and had no idea what this adventure would cost), I think in the end shes just happy that the old garage will now belong to HER as she has already started calling it HER garage! Pretty sure the old garage will have sponge painting, and curtains in it right after I move out
Needless to say I started the process of deciding what I wanted. Since we have a decent sized lot, in an older neighborhood with no HOA I could pretty much do anything I wanted within the setbacks so I called up some builders. Initially we thought of adding onto the existing garage which turned into a cluster flock with setbacks and what the county considered to be the "Front" of my house. Then we thought about adding a 40x40 attached garage on the opposite side of the house so I had some builders come out and give me some estimates. While I was waiting for the estimates I started thinking about the extra 1200 sq ft of roof Id have to coat every 4-5 years (those of you in AZ with flat roofs know what Im talking about), all that extra house to paint, etc. Well the time the estimates came back I already knew what I wanted, a metal building which I think still makes my wife cringe a little
I called up several metal building builders in AZ and quickly found out most were quite flaky (didn't even want to come see the job site) and didn't really make me comfortable investing my hard earned cash with them so I began to look into DIY which also turned into many sleepless nights wondering how in the world I would have time to get it done. In the end, after "interviewing" 9 contractors a guy showed up at my house on time, was knowledgeable, and even though his price was quite a bit more, I knew he was the guy to get it done, and get it done right. I signed the papers, made the deposit, and introduced myself on this forum which I had been lurking on for a while! The building will be an insulated 30x40. I wanted bigger but I could only have 5% of my lot covered with a detached building and 1200 sq ft is exactly 4.99% It will have a man door, two insulated bay doors a 12x10 and a 12x12 on the side I'll be storing my travel trailer. I also decided to do a 30x75 concrete apron all the way to the road. That added a ton of expense BUT its done and he made me a good deal on the concrete compared to the concrete contractors I had talked with. In the end there's gonna be alot of concrete!
I didn't want to start the thread till they actually started so here is the progress so far. The spot I wanted to build had some trees which I hated to cut down because they were probably old than I was but here is the location After I removed the first tree in the forground:
After I removed the trees:
Had 150 yards of ABC brought in for leveling:
This guy was a friggen artist with his box scraper:
ABC spread and rough leveled:
After compaction they hand dug all the footings:
I ran a couple of PVC lines across the driveway for future use:
And yesterday they set the forms/Rebar:
Close up of one of the big footings:
I also dug out two 4x4 areas 4" deeper for future lift posts:
At this point I'm waiting on the inspection of the footings. Rain tomorrow, so the schedule is to pour next week. Temps should be in the 60-70 range so It should be about perfect.
Sorry for the long post I had some catching up to do! I'll update with some pics after the concrete is poured.
For the past several years I have been renting a space for my business and last summer I looked at how much I had paid in rent and realized I could have built my own building for what I had paid. Suddenly a light bulb went off in my head...THATS HOW YOU SELL IT TO THE WIFE DUMMY!
So after mustering up the courage I went to the wife and started to lay it out but she stopped me in the middle and said "Honey, you've always wanted a big garage, you work hard, you deserve it." While I think she was sincere (and had no idea what this adventure would cost), I think in the end shes just happy that the old garage will now belong to HER as she has already started calling it HER garage! Pretty sure the old garage will have sponge painting, and curtains in it right after I move out
Needless to say I started the process of deciding what I wanted. Since we have a decent sized lot, in an older neighborhood with no HOA I could pretty much do anything I wanted within the setbacks so I called up some builders. Initially we thought of adding onto the existing garage which turned into a cluster flock with setbacks and what the county considered to be the "Front" of my house. Then we thought about adding a 40x40 attached garage on the opposite side of the house so I had some builders come out and give me some estimates. While I was waiting for the estimates I started thinking about the extra 1200 sq ft of roof Id have to coat every 4-5 years (those of you in AZ with flat roofs know what Im talking about), all that extra house to paint, etc. Well the time the estimates came back I already knew what I wanted, a metal building which I think still makes my wife cringe a little
I called up several metal building builders in AZ and quickly found out most were quite flaky (didn't even want to come see the job site) and didn't really make me comfortable investing my hard earned cash with them so I began to look into DIY which also turned into many sleepless nights wondering how in the world I would have time to get it done. In the end, after "interviewing" 9 contractors a guy showed up at my house on time, was knowledgeable, and even though his price was quite a bit more, I knew he was the guy to get it done, and get it done right. I signed the papers, made the deposit, and introduced myself on this forum which I had been lurking on for a while! The building will be an insulated 30x40. I wanted bigger but I could only have 5% of my lot covered with a detached building and 1200 sq ft is exactly 4.99%
It will have a man door, two insulated bay doors a 12x10 and a 12x12 on the side I'll be storing my travel trailer. I also decided to do a 30x75 concrete apron all the way to the road. That added a ton of expense BUT its done and he made me a good deal on the concrete compared to the concrete contractors I had talked with. In the end there's gonna be alot of concrete!I didn't want to start the thread till they actually started so here is the progress so far. The spot I wanted to build had some trees which I hated to cut down because they were probably old than I was but here is the location After I removed the first tree in the forground:
After I removed the trees:
Had 150 yards of ABC brought in for leveling:
This guy was a friggen artist with his box scraper:
ABC spread and rough leveled:
After compaction they hand dug all the footings:
I ran a couple of PVC lines across the driveway for future use:
And yesterday they set the forms/Rebar:
Close up of one of the big footings:
I also dug out two 4x4 areas 4" deeper for future lift posts:
At this point I'm waiting on the inspection of the footings. Rain tomorrow, so the schedule is to pour next week. Temps should be in the 60-70 range so It should be about perfect.
Sorry for the long post I had some catching up to do! I'll update with some pics after the concrete is poured.
