Big White Box - 22x30 suburban detached shop

My tiny bachelor pad with 30x50 shop was not so great after my son was born so we looked into building on a few acres but quickly realized it was a buyer's market not a builder's market so we set off to find a house in the city with room for a shop. After a frustrating 2-year search we finally found the spot!

It's a nice dead-end street with no POA but where people take pride in their property and look out for their neighbors. Good stuff. The city was very easy to deal with and approved my sketches on the spot. It's a beast at 20 feet tall but the way it's situated it's really not obnoxious and nobody has a direct view of it out of their windows. It backs up to a boulevard so that helps a lot. Noise shouldn't be an issue if the door is down.

It's 22' wide, 30' deep with a 12' ceiling for a 2-post lift. The door is 16x9 with high bay track and a LM3800 opener. I upgraded the house to a 320A service and split off a 200A service to the shop. I worked with a neighbor's buddy to contract the excavation, concrete, framing, siding, and roofing. All money very well spent! I am on the hook for everything else but I'm happy to say the drainage is done, the sod is laid, and I passed my final electrical inspection. The lift was the most recent accomplishment and it feels good to have that one checked off.

Enough words, on with the show!

Before:


After:






Time-lapse video of the build

More to come...

Nice looking, but I'd done a taller door, at least 10" but 11" would have been better.

Charles

Why taller? Unless I get an RV I can't think of anything I would need the height for. I do regret not making it wider but I would've really started digging into the grade to do that. The lift makes it difficult to get a second vehicle in there but it is so worth it. We had our first jeep work session yesterday and it sure is nice to just stand under there and see what your doing instead of lying on a cold floor where you can't quite get in position to turn a wrench

Nice space! I have 9' tall doors on my current garage with a lift and its the shortest I'd recommend. I don't know your spacing but it might limit a truck on the lift with the door open, its hard to tell by the pictures.

Great looking house / garage.

I thought you said it was a nice 'hood ... What's up with the graffiti on the front lawn?

bww_mnm said:

Great looking house / garage.

I thought you said it was a nice 'hood ... What's up with the graffiti on the front lawn?

Click to expand...

If you are talking about the painted lawn, I'd say that is where they marked for the electric box.

You did a great job. I think I'd give up the larger door for more room upstairs. It will come in handy. Good work!

Where did you get your entry door light?

Super nice shop.. The time lapse was very cool..

OldMedic said:

Where did you get your entry door light?

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That is a cheap light I got at Amazon:
Canarm BL14CWS

I really wanted to get some nice gooseneck lights from Barn Light Electric for the entry and for above the overhead door but funds were tight so that had to wait. That's not a bad light for the money if you want a more industrial look.

The garage door is not a problem for pickups because the beds are low but I'd probably have to close it to lift an Excursion or Suburban all the way up. I haven't measured it but I think that door limits the lift height to about 11' but of course it's lower than that at the very front where the door curves down and that's where I'd run into problems with long SUV type vehicles. I could always back the vehicle in and swap the arms around if I wanted the door open while lifting a long vehicle. I'd probably have to do that regardless to lift a crew cab long bed because the lift is centered 12' from the inside of the front wall to maximize space at the rear of the shop and that would put the rear bumper really close to the door.

One tip that probably saved me some grief... I didn't know what lift I wanted when I poured the concrete so after the rebar was laid I measured it's location from the forms and made a map. I was able to place the lift almost exactly where I wanted it and still miss all the rebar with my holes. A better method would be to know what lift you're going to get and place the rebar accordingly but I was waiting for a deal to show up on Craigslist so I had no idea what I'd end up with.

I have some more pics of the construction phase here:
Photobucket Gallery

Thanks for the nice comments. I'll post up more pics after I finish it out some more.

Oh, Murphy's Law was in full effect on this build. We waited until July to start this build after it had been dry for about a month. It was crazy dusty the day we started excavation but a few days later it started raining and didn't stop for the next 6 weeks. You'll notice everything caked in dust in the first few pics then everything full of water in all the later pics. It made laying the conduit a huge mess and the concrete guys had to stop finishing the slab a couple times and cover it up because of the hard rain. Typical construction project