We moved into our house last March. The plan was always for me to fit a lift in the back and outfit the space for my motorsports hobby. This space also serves as my office as I'm a fulltime telecommuter, it's 1/3 of the space.
The building is a MD Barn out of Lakeland, FL. It is built on a 39’x39’ pad and the structure size is 39’x26’ and includes a huge car port. The building is all steel and steel laminated plywood. The building is somewhat insulated with a radiant barrier under the roof. The previous owner has already ran electricity, cable, telephone, and water to the building.
Here are some pics from when we were house shopping. The previous owner used the space as her interior decorating sample warehouse/office. It was messy but the soaring center ceiling height and +12’ width had my attention!
Shortly after we moved in, the area became more and more crowded with storage, my stuff, wife's stuff, baby stuff, and everything that gets moved around while your moving. I started to put together the plan to renovate the space.
The first step was to upgrade the power. I had 80A of 220v already pulled to the building. I found an electrician on craigslist and had him add outlets to the shop space, pull in a couple 220v boxes for an eventual 2 post lift and an HVAC upgrade.
The HVAC upgrade was next. I worked in the office full time and had a very noisy window shaker that ran constantly in the summer. Being on the phone all day, this made things difficult so quiet and cool were at the top of my list. I decided to go with a split unit from LG that included a heat pump and allowed me to put a unit in the shop and the office.
The “barn” partitions within the space were starting to get in the way and needed to go to open up the shop. There was also a dirt floor in half the space where the horses are to go. The previous owner laid a partition down as a floor. I listed the partitions on craigslist and sold them in less than 24hrs! It almost paid for my concrete work! I had to add unistrut to frame where the partitions were to be sure to add some swaying support. The partitions acted as a bit of structure.
Partition used as floor
Barn partitions are gone. A used Rotary SPOA-9 was located not far from my home that came out of a Buick dealer in south Florida. The lift was reconditioned by the Rotary dealer that I purchased it from. I took my car hauler out there and loaded it up. The install went well but without a forklift, moving the lift supports were incredibly difficult. The assembly was fairly straight forward and I was able to locate the lift into the 24” footers of the building.
Time for concrete! Found a local guy on craigslist who handles the concrete work. He feathered the concrete in to the old concrete. I believe he called this a “pour-back”. We both knew small cracking was probably but I hope to paint the floor eventually.
Having the lift helped move everything off the floor for concrete work.
Time to build a $60 work bench
Added some garage door seals for the sliding door. There were huge air gaps here.
Then there was a huge discovery after talking to the manufacturer that the ceiling above the office was designed to hold substantial weight. I quickly moved all of the Christmas/Halloween/Baby/Easter stuff to the area above my office and claimed the full floorspace for shop duty!
I built a large shelf to hold my junk..it’s not full in the picture but it is now.
Constructed a tire rack out of unistrut and threaded rod.
A few more pics of the “finished” product. It will never be finished but I finally had time to clean and organize as much as possible before starting the next car project.
It even served as our Christmas photo shoot location with my daughter:
This will be a work in progress and plan to update this thread when more changes happen.
Thanks to my family and friends for lending a hand in getting this project moving. Thanks to my wife for allowing me some "me" time to get this done.
Thanks for looking!
The building is a MD Barn out of Lakeland, FL. It is built on a 39’x39’ pad and the structure size is 39’x26’ and includes a huge car port. The building is all steel and steel laminated plywood. The building is somewhat insulated with a radiant barrier under the roof. The previous owner has already ran electricity, cable, telephone, and water to the building.
Here are some pics from when we were house shopping. The previous owner used the space as her interior decorating sample warehouse/office. It was messy but the soaring center ceiling height and +12’ width had my attention!
Shortly after we moved in, the area became more and more crowded with storage, my stuff, wife's stuff, baby stuff, and everything that gets moved around while your moving. I started to put together the plan to renovate the space.
The first step was to upgrade the power. I had 80A of 220v already pulled to the building. I found an electrician on craigslist and had him add outlets to the shop space, pull in a couple 220v boxes for an eventual 2 post lift and an HVAC upgrade.
The HVAC upgrade was next. I worked in the office full time and had a very noisy window shaker that ran constantly in the summer. Being on the phone all day, this made things difficult so quiet and cool were at the top of my list. I decided to go with a split unit from LG that included a heat pump and allowed me to put a unit in the shop and the office.
The “barn” partitions within the space were starting to get in the way and needed to go to open up the shop. There was also a dirt floor in half the space where the horses are to go. The previous owner laid a partition down as a floor. I listed the partitions on craigslist and sold them in less than 24hrs! It almost paid for my concrete work! I had to add unistrut to frame where the partitions were to be sure to add some swaying support. The partitions acted as a bit of structure.
Partition used as floor
Barn partitions are gone. A used Rotary SPOA-9 was located not far from my home that came out of a Buick dealer in south Florida. The lift was reconditioned by the Rotary dealer that I purchased it from. I took my car hauler out there and loaded it up. The install went well but without a forklift, moving the lift supports were incredibly difficult. The assembly was fairly straight forward and I was able to locate the lift into the 24” footers of the building.
Time for concrete! Found a local guy on craigslist who handles the concrete work. He feathered the concrete in to the old concrete. I believe he called this a “pour-back”. We both knew small cracking was probably but I hope to paint the floor eventually.
Having the lift helped move everything off the floor for concrete work.
Time to build a $60 work bench
Added some garage door seals for the sliding door. There were huge air gaps here.
Then there was a huge discovery after talking to the manufacturer that the ceiling above the office was designed to hold substantial weight. I quickly moved all of the Christmas/Halloween/Baby/Easter stuff to the area above my office and claimed the full floorspace for shop duty!
I built a large shelf to hold my junk..it’s not full in the picture but it is now.
Constructed a tire rack out of unistrut and threaded rod.
A few more pics of the “finished” product. It will never be finished but I finally had time to clean and organize as much as possible before starting the next car project.
It even served as our Christmas photo shoot location with my daughter:
This will be a work in progress and plan to update this thread when more changes happen.
Thanks to my family and friends for lending a hand in getting this project moving. Thanks to my wife for allowing me some "me" time to get this done.
Thanks for looking!
Last edited: