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Feedback/ suggestions on shop build

Dmartijn

New member
Joined
Apr 16, 2025
Messages
3
Hello everyone,

I'm new here, I already read a ton but wanted some feedback on the way I plan to build my future shop space.
Last year my girlfriend and I bought a brick house (very common in Belgium/Europe) with an already large workshop 120m2 and smaller connected building/garage ~70m2.
We are currently renovating the house and also built an addition onto the house for the future kitchen in wood framing.
A local company made a building kit according to the plans of the architect and delivered the wood cut on size.
The only thing that was left to to is framing it all up, which went very well with the help of my dad and brother.

This got me thinking about my future shop space..

The current space is made out of concrete posts (almost looks like fence posts which were pretty common here in the time the house/shop were build)
The space between the posts is "filled" up with concrete panels. It's all fairly poorly done in my opinion.
Here in Belgium there's the rule that once there is a space, you can replace it with something else. No way I would have been allowed to build up a shop of 120 square meters if there wasn't already a building there of that size.. It's one of the reasons why we bought the house as well.

The new space will be 12m x 12m, so a little bit bigger than the current shop. The smaller garage will be knocked down, so we have a better view of the garden.
For the new shop I was planning to pour a concrete slab, put up a steel frame works and build a wooden wall structure around the steel frame made out of 45x200mm KVH beams.
I'm thinking of putting the wooden framing on top of a concrete/aerated concrete blocks (just like the addition) to have the wood away from the floorlevel/possible water. The wooden walls will be standing ~10cm away from the steel framing, so it's still possible to add the plywood panels on the inside and fix them to the wood framing. I'm certain that the walls will need to be connected to the steel framing. Possibly with the help of some L-brackets?
For the roof I'll be using metal roofing plates with insulation in-between (sandwich panels).

Also for the steel frame works, sometimes the walls and roof sections have additional bracing (corner to corner) called wind bracing.
I'd like to have minimal or none to keep as much wall space available. Not sure if that is even possible?

I'd like to do most of the construction myself, we (my father, brother and I) are very handy, only haven't done a project of this size.
The steel frame work I won't do myself though. The walls shouldn't be a problem since we now have some experience with the wood framing of the addition of the house.

Is this a common way to do a space like this?
Are there people that have done similar buildings?

I already started out in Solidworks designing the building, here are a couple of pictures.
54456574943_2d19482c68_b.jpg

Left side of the building, 2 smaller windows and a door
54456317571_f8604f82d0_b.jpg

Right side of the building, 3 windows close to the roof. To still allow for natural light to come into the space, but also have wall space to put things in front/hang of off.
54456681895_c764c51f92_b.jpg

Front side of the building, a big opening for a garage door (2,8 high, 4meter wide)
54456317561_136c25ee47_b.jpg

Structure with the roof added. I'll use wooden beams on top of the steel frame, where the roof sandwich panels will screw into.
I'm just not sure yet how to add the gutter to this type of panel? As well as how to finish the underside of the section that sticks out from the outside walls.
54456574918_25edceed4d_b.jpg

Detail picture of the roof corner
54455477642_6af039b2a9_b.jpg

My brother does light calculation, so he used the 3D to check how much light will be inside the shop
54455505632_8e90516135_b.jpg

There will also be a mezzanine
54456602228_1d16557ac3_b.jpg

54456602238_05d9be05d8_b.jpg

Lights on :)
54456709610_afe8e007a9_b.jpg


Feel free to give feedback

Thank you!
 
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Craig Balzer

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 21, 2005
Messages
869
Location
Colorado Springs
We'll need some more info to be able to comment.

Most importantly: What are you going to do in it? - vehicle maintenance? vehicle restoration? woodwork? man cave? gathering site? other?
This will drive comments/recommendations on items: compressed air, welding area, number/sizes of workbenches, car lift, location of larger tools (drill press, buffer, lathe, 20-ton press, plasma cutter, planer, set-up table, hardware storage, parts storage, etc)
Which will drive comments/recommendations on number / location / voltage of outlets
How are you going heat the building?
Are you planning water in there? sinks, toilet, shower
The mezzanine in a nice feature - where are the stairs going to be?
What is to be stored on the mezzanine? if heavy items, how will they get them up onto it / down from it?
 
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Dmartijn

New member
Joined
Apr 16, 2025
Messages
3
We'll need some more info to be able to comment.

Most importantly: What are you going to do in it? - vehicle maintenance? vehicle restoration? woodwork? man cave? gathering site? other?
This will drive comments/recommendations on items: compressed air, welding area, number/sizes of workbenches, car lift, location of larger tools (drill press, buffer, lathe, 20-ton press, plasma cutter, planer, set-up table, hardware storage, parts storage, etc)
Which will drive comments/recommendations on number / location / voltage of outlets
How are you going heat the building?
Are you planning water in there? sinks, toilet, shower
The mezzanine in a nice feature - where are the stairs going to be?
What is to be stored on the mezzanine? if heavy items, how will they get them up onto it / down from it?

Thanks for the reply.

I'm mostly focused now on the just building method.
This will be my third workspace so I do have some understanding what arrangement works best for me.
But of course feedback is always welcome!

This space will be a workspace to (finally) finish the restoration of my BMW 2002 Touring. It'll be used mostly for car maintenance/restoration as well as some metal fabrication and the occasional small woodworking project.
A bit of everything really.

I have a good collection of tool already, compressor, welding machines, fixture table, sheet metal bender, belt sander etc etc..

For now I don't have any plans to actually heat the building. Probably with some gas heater if really needed.
I've never had heat in my previous workspaces.

There'll be a sink to wash up before entering the house, already thought about the pipe location when redoing the plumbing for the actual house.

Mezzanine will be used for long term storage, so not used frequently. I honestly just plan to use a ladder and no dedicated staircase to save on some place. I might fabricate some kind of arm host that ties into the poles of said mezzanine.


Again, this is mostly stuff to go further into detail with once the actual building is build up. I'm now mostly looking for ideas/feedback on the building method.
Steel frame/wood framing for walls
 
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firebirdparts

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Jun 8, 2016
Messages
10,678
Location
Kingsport, TN
It's somewhat normal in the USA to build a steel building and then want wooden walls to work with, but it's not common. Having the wood walls outside serving as the actual envelope is harder. Almost always here a steel building will have steel sides. That's really cheap material, but in the USA at least hard to insulate. We would probably do well to have some of that metal/insulation sandwich that you are using on the roof.

Getting the building sealed up where the walls meet the roof is going to require a lot of hand work, I guess, but that's okay.
 
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Dmartijn

New member
Joined
Apr 16, 2025
Messages
3
It's somewhat normal in the USA to build a steel building and then want wooden walls to work with, but it's not common. Having the wood walls outside serving as the actual envelope is harder. Almost always here a steel building will have steel sides. That's really cheap material, but in the USA at least hard to insulate. We would probably do well to have some of that metal/insulation sandwich that you are using on the roof.

Getting the building sealed up where the walls meet the roof is going to require a lot of hand work, I guess, but that's okay.

Yeah, I've done quite a bit of research and haven't found something like I mentioned.
Or its fully built from wood or metal (and wood framing inside of the metal).

Since this space will be not far away from the house and in direct line of sight, it also needs to look not as workshop-ish..
So just metal siding won't cut it. I'll probably go with some kind of wood profiling/slats for the outside, just like we will do for the addition for the house.

it's not common to find that kind of insulation in the USA? Here in Europe most basic shops/garages are build with this type of paneling.
But again, it's hard to work with since you can't really hang anything from it. It's only good for storage space imho.
 
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