Building myself a proper shop

[StinkBug]

I've been posting this on another board I frequent, and it was suggested that I start a thread here. To be honest I had kinda forgotten about this place. I used to come here a lot to drool over all your awesome spaces. At that time this was all just a dream though so I had to stop myself. Well now it's not such a dream anymore.

I've been planning this for a long time now, and it's finally happening. About 3 years ago I started investigating the idea of a new shop, but at the time it just wasn't a financial possibility for me. Well we all know what the real estate market has done since then and about a year ago I was able to start seriously looking for a place where I could make my idea a reality. I finally ended up buying a 1300sf 3 bedroom (now 2 bedroom) house with a detached 3 car garage, on about 1/3 of an acre. After spending some time fixing up the house I finally got the ball rolling on the new shop. The plan is to clean up the existing garage and make it into a showroom of sorts for my cars and bikes, and then have the new shop for my fab shop and for any vehicle maintenance or projects.

It's gonna be a 40x40x16 steel building with one 16x14 roll up and another 8x10 in the corner that'll mostly be used for ventilation, but could be used for access from the side yard as well. It's been kind of a slow process up til now with ordering the building, getting permits, and figuring out who's gonna put it up and how I'm gonna pay for it all. Just before I left for Reno my concrete guy started clearing all the tall grass and brush from the back yard.

When I came back there were some big holes in the ground, and a LOT of dirt piled up. I guess there was a lot more grading to be done than I expected.

What am I gonna do with all this

 

[StinkBug]

Well I was hoping to have the slab done before the building showed up, but that didn't quite happen. I'm told they should be ready to pour by the end of the week, but I'm almost hoping it wont be ready til next monday. I'm goin up to Laguna Seca for the MotoGP race this weekend, and I'd really like to see the pouring take place. Anyways, the building showed up right on schedule and after some shuffling of trailers, cars and other stuff we got it all stacked in the corner of the yard.

 

[StinkBug]

So as I'm leaving for work this morning my concrete guy tells me that he's having some sand delivered and asks where I'd like them to drop it, since there isn't much room left in back. I just told him I'd move my truck outta the way and they could dump it in the driveway. I wasn't quite expecting this when I got home.

I just hope he starts moving it around soon. I've gotta get that trailer outta the tent in a couple days.

Out back all the holes have been dug, most of the forms are in, and the anchor bolts are all located in nice little plywood jigs. I'm a total construction newb, and I was wondering how the heck he was gonna get those in the right spot. Figures that it would be so simple.

I'm told that he'll be grading the sand, putting in all the steel and calling for inspection this week and should be pouring by monday if not sooner.

 

[StinkBug]

Woke up this morning to the sound of a bobcat, and expected to see some of that sand moved around. When I finally dragged myself to the window I found that they had already put down the first layer and were working on the second. Right now they have almost all of that pile spread out over the back yard.

 

[StinkBug]

It turned out that we had a few yards of sand leftover, so after my contractor had left for the day I spent a couple hours with the bobcat putting that sand to good use. You see I live on a private road that was once all dirt. Well apparently about 10 years ago a bunch of the neighbors got together to have it paved, only problem was that the last 3 people on the street (including the PO of my house) didn't wanna pay, so they only paved up to my driveway. If I turn right it's blacktop, if I go left it's dirt. Since I hate speedbumps, and it's shorter I usually take the dirt, but lately it's been getting pretty rough. It's a fairly steep little hill so when it rains the road gets trenches eroded into it. I decided it was time to smooth it out. Apparently I wasn't the only one that noticed it's condition because one of the neighbors that I hadn't previously met actually came over to thank me, and even gave me some beer money. So now the road is nice and smooth, and my driveway isn't full of holes that turn to mud puddles when it rains.

When I took off for the holiday weekend my contractor was just starting to put the steel in place, and when he said it was a lot of steel he wasn't kidding. All together it came to roughly 2.5 tons of rebar. When I got home last night I found a beautiful sight.

This morning the building inspector came by and woke me up. He passed everything quite quickly though so I forgave him. The concrete will pour tomorrow morning

 

[Fins/413]

Great job, I believe you could park a black hole on that puppy.

 

[StinkBug]

Well the crew showed up bright and early this morning and started pumping in the mud. 7 mixer trucks worth. I had never actually seen how this process worked so I took most of the day off to....supervise. I had told my contractor previously that I wanted a really smooth surface that I could seal to help with oil spills around the shop so he had his guys spend a lot of time getting everything really tight. They did a really nice job with it.

 

[StinkBug]

I figured I couldn't spend all this time and money on a new building and not add some kinda personal touch to the foundation. This morning I ran over to the current shop and cut the company logo out of some 3/8" plate on my Torchmate table and had the guys embed the letters in the concrete. It's centered about 12" inside where the main roll up door will be. Tomorrow when they come to sawcut the expansion joints they are also gonna cut the rectangle in to finish things off.

 

[Nealcrenshaw]

Great job!!!

40x40 is a great size, which is also my future bldg. size.
Except i'm going to go with a 12x12 and 10x10 doors.
Who did you order the building from?

 

[cdrewferd]

Good quick progress, that's always nice. That emblem looks nice as well, never would have thought about that.

 

[StinkBug]

I ordered the building from Empire Steel, which is located right near me in San Diego. They deliver buildings all over the place, but it just happened that they were local for me which made me feel a little more comfortable. They also seemed to be the most responsive. I emailed a bunch of places I found on the web and they called back right away to get more details and then had a quote for me in less than a day. Some others I called directly, told them what I wanted and they just said "we'll call you back with a quote" and never did.

***** for them.

 

[moody]

Looks nice, I recognized the trailer from the Pirate thread. You are building what I'd like to have, so I'll be following along and living vicariously if you don't mind.

 

[StinkBug]

Alright here you go. I finally have an actual update with actual pics. Started bolting things together today. Should be getting the rest of the girts up tomorrow morning, and plannin on doing the heavy lifting for the roof on wednesday.

 

[StinkBug]

Couple more pics from today.

 

[russellmn]

Dallas, glad to see you post this up! Gonna be a nice shop when it's done! Gonna show us pics of the buggy too??

 

[StinkBug]

Just walked outside before bed and thought this looked pretty cool.

I'm sure you guys can tell I'm excited about this, but it's also wearing me out. I'm not a morning person, and I've been getting up at 8 every morning, working til 3 or so with the guys on the building, then heading over to my current shop and working there until around midnight to pay the bills.

 

[Dragster Racer]

You are going to love it. Looks nice so far! Congrats!

 

[lost]

looks great!! looking fwd. to following this build!!

 

[StinkBug]

Got a bit more work done over the last couple days. Unfortunately my contractor was sick on wednesday, and I was pretty busy this week, so we didn't get as much done as we could have, but it's still coming along very well.

 

[StinkBug]

You may have noticed in a couple of the last pics that we also did a bit of drainage work. Since there's a hill that drains into my yard, I was kinda worried about drainage around the shop. My contractor suggested this french drain setup. Basically a pipe with a bunch of holes in it to help direct water. It'll get covered with gravel, then the yard will get graded over top of that so it'll be invisible when finished.

I had an idea that this shop was gonna be pretty big for my neighborhood, but until I saw it from the street on my way home a couple days ago i didn't realize just HOW big.

This is what it looks like from the street on the way down the hill.

Looking down across the neighbors yard from the street above.

And from just behind the football scoreboard.

 

[StinkBug]

Today my contractor sent the bobcat back, and had the rental place bring out a boom lift which made things a TON easier. It's also fun to drive around Since it was there I decided to use it to get some over all pics of the site. In case anyone was wondering why I didn't go bigger, you'll probably understand now.

 

[StinkBug]

A few pics from the last couple days. We finally got all the structural steel up and all the windbracing in and started on the wall sheeting and insulation. The sheeting is goin up pretty quick, so I'm hoping we'll have it all walled in in the next couple days.

 

[Kevin54]

Are you in a plane or climbing the neighbors trees? Great overhead shots and really give you perspective.

 

[heffneil]

He is just really talllllllllllllll!

 

[badhst]

Great build !!!

 

[Tylerb43]

I would guess that rental boom came in handy for the camera man! Are you going to mount bleachers on the roof for the football games?

 

[Jeepguy]

the county approved a gigantic steel structure that towers over all of the surrounding homes? good for you, that wouldnt fly around here.

 

[heffneil]

Behind it looks like a school football field. Notice the scoreboard and track around it. On the other side it looks like a commercial building, and most likely not a home. Just looking at the pics but you sound bitter. Perhaps you tried this in your area and it didn't fly?

Neil

 

[autoist]

Good point - what do the neighbors thin about it?

 

[StinkBug]

Behind it looks like a school football field. Notice the scoreboard and track around it. On the other side it looks like a commercial building, and most likely not a home.

Yep, that's the christian high school field, but there's nothing commercial around me. On the other side of the field (and across the street) is a brand new retirement community with huge condos and homes that hasn't even opened yet, and surrounding me are all homes that were built in the mid 40s. As for the City, I looked up all my zoning requirements and stuck to them pretty well by the book. When I asked about height (because I was worried) they told me the max I could go is 35'. I'm at about 21. The city I live in used to be very rural, and parts of it still are. My next door neighbors have horses, and there are lots of horses, cows, goats, and chickens on the next block over. Because of this the rules for a lot of the city haven't been updated and restricted more.

So far none of the neighbors have complained. The lady across the street thinks it's nice that i'll have a workshop like her husband used to, the people with the horses are desert rats and think its awesome. The rest haven't said anything yet, and really cant say much since I got a permit, and haven't broken any laws.

 

[Jeepguy]

Behind it looks like a school football field. Notice the scoreboard and track around it. On the other side it looks like a commercial building, and most likely not a home. Just looking at the pics but you sound bitter. Perhaps you tried this in your area and it didn't fly?

Neil

i know better to even try to put a steel pole barn up around here, i had a hell of a time getting a 16'x20' wooden deck approved for my house. around here they are all worried about water run off, ground level, eye sores blah blah blah unless you are out in the sticks you can only do what fits in with the rest of the area. i have a half acre lot in a neighborhood and i couldnt get a F-ing 12'x14' prebuilt shed approved by the county. BS and yes i am really just jealous!

 

[StinkBug]

...unless you are out in the sticks...

I bought my house for exactly this reason. I knew before buying that I wanted to build a shop, so I made sure to buy in an older neighborhood, with no HOA, and where there were a fair number of run down looking cars in the front yards. I'm super lazy about yard maintenance, and my place still looks better than a lot of the houses on the street. I just made sure to get friendly with the neighbors right away, and I'm doing my best to only make my place more attractive than it was, which isn't hard. The neighbors all really liked seeing me grading the road with the bobcat we rented, and I took a little time to fix some issues my neighbors had while I was at it too. I figure if you're friendly and helpful they are a lot more likely to let things slide.

 

[StinkBug]

The last few days haven't gone as quickly as I expected, but we have gotten quite a bit done. I didn't realize how many little pieces of trim and flashing there were, and figuring out all the cuts and making sure to get them right has taken some time. Thankfully Danny, my contractor, is pretty meticulous with his measurements and so far everything has gone together very nicely.

I also got caught up with some work over at the current shop and haven't been around to help with the big pieces as much, so Danny has been working on getting all the trim pieces up. That stuff is a lot less impressive, but a lot trickier and time consuming so I'm glad it's mostly done now. Danny will be back in the morning and putting up the back and front walls are first on the list. Thankfully I'm also done with the work I had so I'll be working here a bit more as well so things should pick up this week I hope.

 

[wrigh003]

Looks big. Is this going to be purely the home shop, or are you planning on running some part of your business out of it? I like it.

 

[cletus66]

i know better to even try to put a steel pole barn up around here, i had a hell of a time getting a 16'x20' wooden deck approved for my house. around here they are all worried about water run off, ground level, eye sores blah blah blah unless you are out in the sticks you can only do what fits in with the rest of the area. i have a half acre lot in a neighborhood and i couldnt get a F-ing 12'x14' prebuilt shed approved by the county. BS and yes i am really just jealous!

Sounds like it is time to move. My father is a contractor in PA, and there are counties where he refuses to work. That tells me something.

 

[yellow2000S/R]

Sounds like it is time to move. My father is a contractor in PA, and there are counties where he refuses to work. That tells me something.

Is Fairview township in York County one of them? Its stuid around here as to how strict the laws are. That and one of the neighbors finds anything to ***** about.

 

[StinkBug]

Looks big. Is this going to be purely the home shop, or are you planning on running some part of your business out of it? I like it.

I'm gonna plead the 5th

 

[StinkBug]

For those that are wondering what'll be filling up this space, here are a couple pics of my current shop. It's about 950sf minus the 10x10 office, and way too big bathroom. These were taken right after a huge cleanup and since then I've traded out one of the tool boxes for a larger unit and added a Torchmate CNC Plasma table that sits in the middle of the floor, right about where these pics were taken from. Needless to say it's a bit crowded, I can literally only fit one vehicle in there right now and I always pray that my next customer doesn't have a full size truck.

Heres a shot I found of the plasma table...also back when it was clean and pretty

 

[wrigh003]

I'm gonna plead the 5th

I will be jealous of your commute, ahem, "walk to the hobby shop" then.

 

[StinkBug]

Made lots of good progress today, even though it was blazing hot in the sun. Even Danny's dog Murphy didn't wanna do anything but pass out in the shade.

We buttoned up the back wall and got almost all of the front wall done. It's really starting to come together now. Danny is off tomorrow, so we'll be finishing up the front wall and starting on the roof thursday.