Figured I'd start a thread as an intro and to compile any questions I might have and get some advice. I'm fairly handy and plan on doing a lot of the work myself. I don't mind researching things to death but definitely enjoy bouncing ideas off of people and maybe get a better plan or direction out of discussions.
My girlfriend and I bought our house June 2015 on an little over an acre with a few out buildings on the property. One being this shop:
Now before anyone says "tear it down and start anew". One of the features of this property is there's a fish bearing creek that crosses the property. The shop sits less then 20' from said creek. It's grandfathered in that spot so I can repair but rebuilding is out.
The shop itself was an old house that I learned came from the property on the other side of the creek. It has plywood flooring, ship lapping under some crude drywall and sawdust insulation. Electrical is a mixture of old (original perhaps?) and newer. A couple shots of when we first looked and before purchasing:
Workshop size:
Bay side:
The garage door's tracks and roller system was inoperable so I tore it out and lag bolted the door in place while I planned how to proceed with the shop.
The first project to the shop itself was removal of the shelving in the bay side to make room to pull my truck in.
At this point I hadn't driven into the shop because of the door. One afternoon my brother and I unbolted the door and pushed one of my trucks in to swap a blown transmission out. It was quickly reversed out as the floor started to cave in. The rest of the afternoon was spent ripping up the few front sheets of plywood by the door to discover this:
So obviously the floor being repaired is now the focal point of the shop build.
I flirted briefly with rebuilding the wood floor only with better support and dual beams where your tires would go but scrapped that plan when the cost exceeded a concrete pad and I would still have to worry about fire when welding.
Concrete slab it is.
I still needed to work out of it as I had a truck that needed a transmission swap and some other work done. The shop also got some quality of life improvements in that time including better lighting (original was 4 incandescent light bulb fixtures), wiring for 220V welder and compressor install. Nothing permanent though.
The concrete pad outside (11x12' roughly) was used a lot this year.
Now that the truck is mostly finished I started focusing on the shop. I'm still working on clearing out a large portion of the mess that can accumulate over a year:
As of now it's about 80% empty and I'm starting to plan out the next couple steps.
I'm going to back fill the 24" deep hole after removing the current floor with 20" of crush. That will leave me with 4" for the concrete pad.
Before the crush goes in I'm planning on starting the new door build. I'm going to re-frame and widen the opening to 11' and build two 5.5' swing open barn style doors.
They will be attached to treated 4x4x10s that run the full 8' door opening and 2' into the ground and back filled into place with the crush.
The foundation will have to be jack hammered where the 4x4s will go but it's already broken and buckled in at those spots.
I've yet to do much invasive investigating but I have a suspicion the current door does not have a header panel above it and was merely cut open and called done.
I would like to increase my head room to closer to 8' if I can. Is is possible to use 2x4s sandwiched as a header panel?
I also have water issues both ground and exterior.
The ground level outside the shop is higher allowing water to hit the outside wall and push through the sill plate and foundation. It will have to be dealt with at a later time but before I replace and repair the sill plate and start on any wall repairs in the future. With that said should I do anything like a vapor barrier that runs under the crush and later the sill plate and up the outside of the wall? I know normally you run a vapor barrier under your pad but would water running under your pad between it and the crush cause issues later? What if the water ran under your crush instead? Thoughts?
That's where I sit now. The ground will be freezing up shortly so the winter plan is to finish emptying the shop, gutting the floor and starting the door build.
My girlfriend and I bought our house June 2015 on an little over an acre with a few out buildings on the property. One being this shop:
Now before anyone says "tear it down and start anew". One of the features of this property is there's a fish bearing creek that crosses the property. The shop sits less then 20' from said creek. It's grandfathered in that spot so I can repair but rebuilding is out.
The shop itself was an old house that I learned came from the property on the other side of the creek. It has plywood flooring, ship lapping under some crude drywall and sawdust insulation. Electrical is a mixture of old (original perhaps?) and newer. A couple shots of when we first looked and before purchasing:
Workshop size:
Bay side:
The garage door's tracks and roller system was inoperable so I tore it out and lag bolted the door in place while I planned how to proceed with the shop.
The first project to the shop itself was removal of the shelving in the bay side to make room to pull my truck in.
At this point I hadn't driven into the shop because of the door. One afternoon my brother and I unbolted the door and pushed one of my trucks in to swap a blown transmission out. It was quickly reversed out as the floor started to cave in. The rest of the afternoon was spent ripping up the few front sheets of plywood by the door to discover this:
So obviously the floor being repaired is now the focal point of the shop build.
I flirted briefly with rebuilding the wood floor only with better support and dual beams where your tires would go but scrapped that plan when the cost exceeded a concrete pad and I would still have to worry about fire when welding.
Concrete slab it is.
I still needed to work out of it as I had a truck that needed a transmission swap and some other work done. The shop also got some quality of life improvements in that time including better lighting (original was 4 incandescent light bulb fixtures), wiring for 220V welder and compressor install. Nothing permanent though.
The concrete pad outside (11x12' roughly) was used a lot this year.
Now that the truck is mostly finished I started focusing on the shop. I'm still working on clearing out a large portion of the mess that can accumulate over a year:
As of now it's about 80% empty and I'm starting to plan out the next couple steps.
I'm going to back fill the 24" deep hole after removing the current floor with 20" of crush. That will leave me with 4" for the concrete pad.
Before the crush goes in I'm planning on starting the new door build. I'm going to re-frame and widen the opening to 11' and build two 5.5' swing open barn style doors.
They will be attached to treated 4x4x10s that run the full 8' door opening and 2' into the ground and back filled into place with the crush.
The foundation will have to be jack hammered where the 4x4s will go but it's already broken and buckled in at those spots.
I've yet to do much invasive investigating but I have a suspicion the current door does not have a header panel above it and was merely cut open and called done.
I would like to increase my head room to closer to 8' if I can. Is is possible to use 2x4s sandwiched as a header panel?
I also have water issues both ground and exterior.
The ground level outside the shop is higher allowing water to hit the outside wall and push through the sill plate and foundation. It will have to be dealt with at a later time but before I replace and repair the sill plate and start on any wall repairs in the future. With that said should I do anything like a vapor barrier that runs under the crush and later the sill plate and up the outside of the wall? I know normally you run a vapor barrier under your pad but would water running under your pad between it and the crush cause issues later? What if the water ran under your crush instead? Thoughts?
That's where I sit now. The ground will be freezing up shortly so the winter plan is to finish emptying the shop, gutting the floor and starting the door build.
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