Between 705 & 1200 SQ/FT Humble Shop in the North

[Aladinsane07]

I'm sure that was stressful to not know what's going on at first!

You can say that again. My voice was shaky for the first couple minutes of the presentation.

Impressive work on everything. Looks like quite a nice amount of space. Maybe you can come build one for me, next?

Jokes aside, once it's up and running I'm hopeful that the shop becomes a place that a bunch of people can use. I've already had a couple friends get excited about a project because they'll have a place and a lift to do bigger things. I miss being young and having a bunch of friends spending hours trying to get someone's **** box fixed up. So that's your official invite

My wife has seen me build many things. I always marvel at the surprise in her voice when she comments on a project. I just pat myself on the back and assume that she's just super impressed. lol

Awesome build thread. Can't wait to see what's next!

Same! She always says, "you start so many projects and never follow through". Then I just point around the house to all the things I've built or fixed until she rolls her eyes.

Thanks for following along

So great to see the sheathing on...looking great

Me too Thanks!

Coming on nicely as someone said can you build one for me
but I would need a bigger garden first 🫣
G

Let's see how this one turns out before we start a wait-list, ok?
It would be a lot more fun to do with someone else's money though.

 

[Aladinsane07]

I knew this day was coming, but I was not prepared. This is just the beginning...




A little progress this week. Electricians got the panel installed and roughed out the necessary circuits to get through inspection. Now I'm waiting on the power company to (hopefully ) approve the new service.




Also got the gable ends framed out preparing for insulation. I did the layout off center from the truss boards to allow insulation behind the studs and reduce thermal bridging.

 

[sawduststeve]

What’s this ? Drug dealer trying to get rid of the evidence, badly.

 

[Aladinsane07]

Today I got sick of waiting for the power company to decide I can have lights so I put together a temporary solution. And with sunset at 4:45 and dropping it was necessary. I found these extremely cheap (in price and quality) LEDs at Home Depot and threw them up quick. It'll do.

 

[slim_grim]

Today I got sick of waiting for the power company to decide I can have lights so I put together a temporary solution. And with sunset at 4:45 and dropping it was necessary. I found these extremely cheap (in price and quality) LEDs at Home Depot and threw them up quick. It'll do.

I ended up liking my "temporary" Harbor Freight lights so much, that I forgot all about putting up commercial fixtures like I had planned. I have a couple spares incase one dies, but so far so good.

 

[Aladinsane07]

Not too much progress this week. I got the official sign off from the electrical inspector.



I did a few trips to the dump to get rid of the off cuts and extra building material.





It was taking up a ton of floor space.


Got the winter tires on the wife's car a little too late

 

[Aladinsane07]

A lot more snow than progress lately. I lent the CR-V to a friend whose car died and the clutch gave out on him. I felt bad because I was trying to do him a favor but it turned into a hassle. I'm leaving for a week for work so I really needed it fixed. I had to improvise a couple tools because most of my stuff is in storage. Little angle grinder and file to fake a flare nut wrench.



The wind was whipping pretty good, but it was surprisingly cozy out of the brunt of it.



Not cozy enough to keep my beard from freezing . Got it done and off to warm up.

 

[Aladinsane07]

I've got a little catching up to do since my last update. I spent the week before Christmas in Costa Rica again. I never get much time to do anything but work, but I'm certainly missing the views and weather right about now.



Christmas was nice and quiet. My wife and I decided to tell family and friends, "here's where we're doing Thanksgiving this year, here's where we're doing Christmas" rather than trying to make everyone happy. So rather than popping into 5 places for half an hour each, we actually got to have good conversations and meals. I think this will be the default from now on.

Right after new years I finally got power to the building! Not without a bit of hassle of course. The power company sent out two boom trucks and they couldn't reach up and over the roof to access the drop. But rather than leaving, the whole crew decided to nap out front.



So they sent out two bigger trucks. They too were shortly napping across the street. A couple hours after that we got two of the BIGGEST trucks and they were able to reach. The crew knocked it out and were off on their merry way.



I wired in a couple more 20 amp circuits and added enough outlets to eliminate all the cords I had running from the house. That felt like a big step. Next I got 2 of the 4 LED panels that will light the back half of the garage in. Honestly, I was super underwhelmed. I had a single one of the panels in my old garage and, while obviously a smaller space, it was nearly blinding. On a hunch I swapped over from the motion sensor / dimmer switch I had installed to a standard one. Ta Da! All the light. I guess the panels are wired for an internal proprietary dimmer so it was only putting out the minimum amount of light. I also got one of my external garage door lights up. It looks a little cocked eyed for now, but I needed to see if I was going to stick with this style.



I've again been balancing working ON the garage versus IN the garage. A close friend's spouse had some car trouble so we changed a knock sensor on the world's coldest parking lot. That was enough to get it to my garage and did a ton of long overdue maintenance.

 

[nicholam77]

I've again been balancing working ON the garage versus IN the garage. A close friend's spouse had some car trouble so we changed a knock sensor on the world's coldest parking lot. That was enough to get it to my garage and did a ton of long overdue maintenance.

I hope that was a couple weeks ago when it was in the 30's. I can feel the cold emanating from that picture. I chuckled at the Uggs.

Must be nice to have power to the shop!

 

[Cris B]

You clearly have viking genes somewhere in your lineage - takes some hardiness to be working on cars on concrete in those conditions.

Enjoying the progress on this build. When are you going to get some doors fitted? That will transform the usability of the space whilst you finish other things.

 

[Aladinsane07]

I hope that was a couple weeks ago when it was in the 30's. I can feel the cold emanating from that picture. I chuckled at the Uggs.

Must be nice to have power to the shop!

Unfortunately it was not. Can't remember the date but it was one of those that was mildly cold during the day and frigid at night. As soon as the sun went down it was bitter. Everyone chuckles at the Uggs, me included. My mom lives in Australia, where they were originally made, and gave them to me as a gift. They sat in my closet for years until I realized how warm they are.

Having power is incredible. It simplifies every little task by eliminating the need to prioritize what gets the extension cord at that time.

You clearly have viking genes somewhere in your lineage - takes some hardiness to be working on cars on concrete in those conditions.

Enjoying the progress on this build. When are you going to get some doors fitted? That will transform the usability of the space whilst you finish other things.

Ha no Viking genes. It was not something I was super keen on doing, but sometimes friends need a hand.

I have thought about the order of operations here endlessly. Part of me wanted to quickly get interior sheeting up so I could temporarily mount doors for the winter. Maybe being closed in would help me get more done over the winter? I opted not to because I'd prefer to have all circuits run and insulation in place before adding anything to the walls. Fortunately/unfortunately one thing I know about myself is if there's an easier rode, I'm probably taking it. So when it would've come time to pull the doors and sheathing back down, I could find 100 things to do instead of 'going backwards' and doing it right.

 

[captain14]

Have you considered the blue tarp door system? It would keep the wind and debris out of your work area.

 

[Aladinsane07]

Have you considered the blue tarp door system? It would keep the wind and debris out of your work area.

Not a bad idea. I have enough tarps laying around. Even cutting the wind in half would be pretty impactful.

 

[Aladinsane07]

Well it's been a bit since I've accomplished anything update worthy. If you can think back a few months, things in Minneapolis were quite disheartening to say the least. Last week I decided to go out and put a few tools away. That turned into installing a few outlets. Next thing I knew I was out of my funk and calling the city inspector to come out for the framing inspection. Well he was very happy with what he saw and gave me his official blessing to continue work. I have to admit I was pretty anxious about the amount of possible rework his decision could mandate.

With my renewed vigor I started to plan the remaining work, research the things I don't know, and put in my PTO to actually have time to do the things. Nowhere in that plan was buying a big obstacle for the space, but this followed me home...



Yes that is a lift on a trailer. A while ago I set up alerts for a few four post lifts I would consider if they ever came up. Well this Backyard Buddy 7K popped up for a suspiciously good deal. Good enough that I ignored it for a few days. Eventually I decided to check it out and what do you know? It was legit. When I went to look at it, having already decided I was buying it, I was talking logistics with the seller and he mentioned that I could save a ton of time between tear down and set up if I strapped it down to a U-Haul trailer and towed it home. Apparently he had seen it on YouTube and moved an older lift that way. Thoroughly skeptical, I thought I'd give it a try and lo and behold, it worked like a charm.



While it wasn't part of the plan to purchase yet, I'm very happy so far. And it moves very easily so it shouldn't be too in the way.



More updates soon.

 

[Aladinsane07]

It was rainy today so I did some inside activities. If you guys remember the incident I talked about earlier in the thread where many, many cops showed up at my house, my big takeaway was how woeful my current Eufy cameras are. I'm planning a huge improvement in that area, moving to PoE cameras with all footage backed up on a local NAS. Last week I bench tested all the components just to make sure everything was communicating properly. The new setup will essentially be 2x Reolink 4K Dual Lens Flood, 2x Reolink PTZ, 2x TP Link 5 Channel switches, and a NAS with enough storage for continuous recording for at least 2 weeks. One issue I knew I'd have was getting a good enough internet connection in the garage to run two 4K cameras. I had initially planned on running shielded Cat6 in the same channel that was dug during the electric panel install. If you remember, it was about $9K cheaper to run a separate electrical service, so no channel to piggy back off. Instead I bought a TP Link WiFi Mesh system. With some careful positioning, there's a pretty good connection in the garage.

I got everything hooked up and it... just sort of worked. I expected tons of troubleshooting with identifying camera IPs or the switch connecting to the network. Something. But nope, I had the cameras up and running in their temporary positions really quickly.





I've got some settings to play with for image quality, what instances to directly notify me of, etc. but it's nice to know it just works.

 

[Aladinsane07]

I got most of the attic flooring laid today. AdvanTech was probably overkill, but I'm still not sure of the primary use for this space so I wanted to make it as stable as possible. Not many pictures because I don't have lights up there yet and I was solo.