The New Swanky Workshop - 8 x 16

Earlier this summer, I bought a restoration masonry business from my mentor. Rather than keep a small warehouse or maintain a storefront for the business, he stored tools and materials at his house.

Now, I like this idea, however, working out of my house is a challenge for a number of reasons... first, my garage was already dedicated to my classic cars, and while I already had a basement workshop, it was better suited to house projects than storing bags of mortar, tools, and equipment. Up until now, I've been sharing my garage and the area around it with my work tools and supplies. To be honest, this has been driving me crazy; I'm a fairly organized individual and really I don't like mixing project spaces.

Since I didn't want to rent a space nearby, I decided to build a shed. My city's code for sheds is relatively loose; as long as it's under 144 sqft, you can do pretty much whatever you want without a permit. With winter rapidly approaching, I need to get this thing buttoned up before we're buried in snow. (We could have anywhere from 3" to 18" in 24 hours depending on how it comes down from Lake Ontario)

I built a box with pressure treated 6x6, half lapped the corners, and filled it with crusher. The shed floor was built with pressure treated 2x8, I installed a vapor barrier, and decked it with 1" plywood from my inventory. I made openings for three large 4' x 5' windows that I salvaged from a job last winter. This week, I'll wrap the sheathing with Tyvek, frame in the roof.

I still have a few more details to work out, but this project seems to be moving along fairly quickly. With a couple helpers, I was able to get this all together in about two days. As I gear up for the next phase, I'm debating between roofing materials; asphalt vs metal. Cost really isn't an issue for me, asphalt I've done before, metal would be entirely new. I'm leaning toward metal, but we'll see. Stay tuned!

That's a cool little work area. Since you'll be playing around with mortar and water plus however you do the cleaning, how are you planning on protecting the floor? If I were doing this and with your intended use in mind I'd do a fiberglass mat membrane complete with a seemless cove base 6" up the wall using a flexible polyester resin mix with a non-slip additive in the seal coat. This way if you did a good enamel wall coat could hose it out on occasion.

Well anyhow good luck and post up some pictures of your projects.

LXCam said:

That's a cool little work area. Since you'll be playing around with mortar and water plus however you do the cleaning, how are you planning on protecting the floor?

Click to expand...

Good question, and a great suggestion!

This shed is more for tool and dry material storage than anything. I wash my tools daily on site, so this shed shouldn't see any water other than the occasional mop. I generally mix samples outdoors to minimize dust, contamination, and mess.

I do have a few 5 gallon buckets of chemicals and additives that need to I store, so I have a deep plastic tray to protect against leaks and spills. I am thinking the floor will be Armstrong linoleum in some throwback color since most everything else I have is old. Easy to maintain and clean up.

Along the solid wall I will have a long bench with my chop saw to cut forms, and my bench grinder to sharpen tools. Shelving above for rolls of poly, waterproofing membranes, dyes, power washer, etc, and below for chemicals and some brick or stone veneers. Along the window wall, I will use a heavy duty 6' x 2' pallet to store things like mortar, Speedcrete, Tamoseal, or thinset. To be honest, I won't store a ton of material in the shed, but I often have about 10 bags of different products left over from jobs at any given time. I cycle through it quickly, but the garage simply has no space for it. In between the windows and doors, I will hang shovels, rakes, etc.

Also, I have a secondary "mortar shack" near where I park my dump truck. That serves as a "lobby" for materials going to and from jobs. It's easy for me to stock that in the evening with essentials and tell my helpers to grab what's on the shelf the next day.

Copy that, it seemed as though this was going to be a work area and not just storage. With that clarification I'd also just go with a linoleum floor but still use it as the cove so it rolls up the wall. That way if anything ever did happen and something leaked with the corners sealed it'd just be a small swimming pool except at the doorway.

A little shed update: got the roof on and shingled before the heavy snow came down, installed the door and lock set, and built a small loft to store rolled goods such as tar paper and Tyvek. I also put up a pot rack that my mentor salvaged from an old mansion about 30 years ago, this is used to store empty buckets.

Right now, the large windows are in my basement shop, so they can repaired and re-glazed before they are assembled into their frames. My goal is to have the windows be operational to allow for some airflow in the summer months.