24x32 Custom Post-Frame in Virginia

[Sunstealer73]

We signed a contract last Friday with CB Structures for a custom post-frame garage 24dx32w in size. The left 16' section will have storage/attic trusses to allow for storage in the loft area. It will be accessed by stairs going up the outside of the building. The right 16' section will have scissor trusses to allow installation of a 4-post lift, hopefully within the next year.

Our house is a 1 1/2 story with tan vinyl siding, green shutters, white panel doors, and brown shingles. CB Structures is going to match everything to our house, so it should blend in very well. The house has a 24x24 attached garage, but it is difficult for me to do projects in it. The plan is for the attached garage to house the daily drivers for my wife and I (His: Audi S4, Hers: Infiniti G37). My 1966 Mustang GT 2+2 will go over to the new garage. My truck (1988 Chevy K1500) and my mother-in-law's car (2012 Ford Focus) will park in the driveway except for the winter.

The tree service cut down a large maple tree for us today. They did it so quick I didn't even get pictures. Excavators should be here later this week or early next week to level out the area for the slab. Materials should be here within the next two weeks with construction complete within 6-8 weeks. I will be finishing the inside myself once the structure and pad are completed.

Looking from the road back, the small stakes are the corners of the new garage, large stakes are the surveyed setbacks

Looking back towards the house

Existing garage and vehicles

Mustang and unorganized stuff

 

[Banana #2505]

Where in Va are you? I'm in Mechanicsville. Always good to see fellow virginians on here.

 

[Sunstealer73]

I'm in southwest near the TN and NC borders.

 

[Sunstealer73]

Got some serious grading done today:

Topsoil removal

Getting close to level

Gonna need a short retaining wall once the building is up

One last shot

 

[Sunstealer73]

Final grading and rock for where the new driveway extension is going.

 

[Bib Overalls]

Looks like a good project. Interested is seeing progress pictures. Keep posting!

 

[z28dad]

Nice build, looking forward to seeing the progress. I'm also from VA, the nrv area.

 

[Sunstealer73]

Got the full engineered drawings today. Materials should be here next Monday if all goes well. The only change from the attachment is that we decided to leave the window off the front.

 

[Sunstealer73]

Looks like we got a huge shipment of materials today, lumber, sheathing, shingles, doors, windows, etc.

 

[Sunstealer73]

We finally made some more progress today.

This was the area when I left for work this morning:

This is how it looks tonight:

It looks like we are ready for trusses tomorrow morning and then sheathing and siding on Wednesday.

 

[Sunstealer73]

Now we are really getting somewhere:

View from the driveway angle:

Straight-on view - You can barely make out where the trusses switch from storage over the left bay to vaulted over the right.

A little better shot looking up at the trusses:

 

[Nighttrain]

That’s looking really nice. Think it’s the steepest pitch pole barn I’ve seen.

 

[Sunstealer73]

It is a 12/12 to match our house and attached garage. That also gives me the most usable area in the storage trusses. None of the local builders would do one like this. CB Structure had no problem at all building it this way.

 

[Daniel Dudley]

Do not forget your vapor barrier before you put in the concrete.

 

[scutty83]

Very nice. It is similar to my build 30x30x10 pole barn with attic trusses. I am in the same stage of construction as you although I've been working on mine for about a month now...building myslef with no construction back ground.

 

[purpony]

looking good! cant wait to see it finished

 

[R_Willis]

Awesome, the plans are very like mine, you can see my recent thread here, and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on pricing.

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=114883

 

[Sunstealer73]

The contractor took a couple of days off last week to work on finishing up another project. They got a lot done today though:

Roof plywood finished, garage doors framed out:

Nice to look up and not see the sky:

 

[neonnblack]

Did they build the trusses on site? Nice building.

 

[Sunstealer73]

No, they are engineered trusses.

 

[Sunstealer73]

More progress in the last couple of days.

Back side ready for siding:

Plywood floor down in loft:

Soffitt and Flashing:

View from my deck:

View from front:

 

[Sunstealer73]

Back side completely sided, wind picked up some of the felt this afternoon:

Right side completely sided:

Most of the flashing and trim done on the front, ready for siding:

View looking up at the loft, floors and walls covered with OSB:

Looking out from the loft:

Another shot from the loft:

 

[hockey88fan]

Looks great! What are you going to do with the area next to the right side if the garage? Small retaining wall?

 

[Sunstealer73]

Yes, a retaining wall with some landscaping and drainage.

 

[Red Leader]

Yay, good old Virginia (where I grew up).

If you were closer, I would have given you $50 for all that grass you dug up and I would have had a new backyard to replace our dying, weed filled mess in the back

Nice build, and coming along nicely

 

[Hauntedyards]

What is the roof pitch on that? Thats exactly what I want to do in mine... My house is a 10/12.

 

[Sunstealer73]

It is a 12/12.

 

[Sunstealer73]

It has been dark the last few days before I could get pictures, but we have made a lot of progress this week. The construction crew thinks they will be done with the structure tomorrow. The only thing left on the contract will be the garage doors. I'll be finishing the interior and electrical myself.

Back side complete with roof:

Front side partially roofed, only section not sided yet:

Stairs nearly complete. The part that looks crooked is just a loose board resting there:

Concrete slab complete with expansion joints:

The concrete crew that was here yesterday did a phenomenal job. It is the slickest concrete I have seen and all done by hand. The back 6 feet is completely level so the entry door will open correctly. It then slopes 1/2" over the next 16 feet. They stepped it down another 1/2" at the doors and made a lip so water will not run in. It looks great. I was going to go epoxy, but am now debating over just staining and sealing it since it came out so nice.

 

[Crazy68Dart]

Do you have the plans for this? This is *exactly* what I want to build, just a little bit bigger. What is the height at the peak?

Very nice.

 

[Sunstealer73]

I don't have full plans for it other than what I posted earlier. You could probably call CB Structures and see if you can buy a set. If you are in their building area, I can definitely recommend them.

I hope to post some more photos this weekend. The structure is complete now. I have framed out the inside walls and am roughing in the electrical this weekend.

 

[Sunstealer73]

The contractor finished with their work on Tuesday. The garage door company came on Wednesday and got those installed.

Regular door:

High lift door on vaulted side:

Completed outside:

The paving company will hopefully come this week and get the final grading and rock ready. Once that is done, we will be building the retaining wall around the driveway and right side of the building. After that is complete, the paving company will come back to pave the driveway addition and flush against the retaining wall.

I have been framing out the inside walls and getting the electrical ready. I used 2x6 studs to frame out the walls even with the faces of the post. I toe-nailed between each post at the top and bottom (leaving a 3/4" gap between the floor and bottom plate). I then toe-nailed studs on 24" centers between the posts.

Sample wall:

I am really glad I decided to purchase a framing nailer. I bought a Senco FramePro 702XP and it was worth every penny when toe-nailing all these walls.

Wiring is done for the lights. I will have four 4' strip lights running parallel to the side walls and two 8' strip lights running parallel to the front and rear walls over each bay.

You can see the NM sticking down where the lights are going in these pictures:

That should give me 1120 watts of light total for 768sf, divided on two switches.

 

[silverdub]

wow! lookin good!

 

[HeyNow^]

Nice build. I had CBStructures build a 30X40 for me a year and a half ago. Building is great but the guy that build the structure poured the slab too. My slab is cracked in many places and he had to came back because he only put two short cuts (on the 30 foot direction). The manager admitted that he was not a good concrete guy, and that is why he has his own dedicated crew to pour the floors now.
If you ever have a problem, and call CBStructures, they will refer you to the crew that built it. They won't do anything for the customer. I am sure your luck will be better than mine.

 

[Sunstealer73]

We got a lot done this week.

I passed the electrical rough-in inspection yesterday, so no more extension cords! The electrical in the loft is completely done now with receptacles and lights. I just temporarily connected the GFCI on each of the three circuits downstairs so we can have power until we get the drywall up.

The paving company got everything graded and rocked in preparation for the asphalt next week sometime. We are supposed to get a large delivery of wall block tomorrow so we can get the retaining wall next to the driveway finished. They are going to run the paving right up against the wall.

I installed the RapidAir in the walls first thing today. The compressor will go in the back right corner, so I mounted the manifold above it. I ran one outlet to each side wall about halfway down. I ran another one to the ceiling at the midway point for my air reel.

RapidAir going in:

My wife helped me today get all the walls insulated. We used John Manville R19. I have never used anything but Owens Corning, but really like this stuff.

Insulation starting to go in, almost finished with RapidAir:

Side wall partially insulated with blocking for RapidAir outlet:

Back wall completely insulated:

Side wall finished:

Front wall finished:

It is starting to really come together now. I cannot find a drywall crew though. Everyone here is booked up for months, some until December. We had a lot of tornado damage here, I assume that is taking lots of their time still. We may try to hang it ourselves just so we can get moved in.

 

[Nighttrain]

Looking good. I almost went with rapid air but am holding out for copper, still dragging air hoses all over. Watch a couple youtube videos on drywall and learn some pro-tips on it. It's not all that hard. You will need help though lifting and holding it up. I used nails on mine just to get it in place then went back with screws. Ive seen a lot of pros do this also. Good luck!

 

[Sunstealer73]

Started the retaining wall this week. It is a big job, but starting to come together. No earth moving equipment but a couple of shovels and a pick.

Contemplating what I am getting myself into:

Getting those bottom courses level is tough:

Starting to look like something:

Put a few curves in for interest:

Starting on the terraced step, space between will be plantings:

 

[93l3008]

You should consider rock base for terrace too. Also Drain rock behind the wall with drain will go along way. You could have mud eventually seep in between rocks. nothing worse than a leaning wall and having to look at it everyday.

 

[Sunstealer73]

We've been trying to finish up everything outside since the weather is starting to change on us.

I could not convince any of the seamless gutter guys to come out for such a small job. I ended up making them myself using the vinyl gutters from Home Depot. They look great, I hope they hold up for several years at least.

Finished framing out the gables on the vaulted part:

Everything is insulated and ready for drywall now.

The drywall, paint, and flooring will pretty much use up my budget for the year. I was hoping to do the entire back wall in cabinets, but it looks like that will have to wait until next year, along with the lift and heat pump.

 

[hockey88fan]

How much money was spent on the retaining wall block, and what's the linear foot in the wall? Looks great!

 

[Sunstealer73]

The blocks are about $2/each and we used about 700 of them. We're going to do a cap on it too, but will probably wait until the spring.