Above 1200 Sq/FT The Pool Barn

[KevoDesign]

The following Tuesday my wife called me at work to tell me that the siding had been delivered and it was the wrong color. I could not believe it, I had her send me pictures of the packing list, and indeed the color name was different as was the supplier. The color was supposed to be Ocean, we got Blue Slate?

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

I also noted that night that the LVL's were only bolted to one half of the truss. I called the contractor to discuss the siding color, his initial response was that is what you ordered, until I brought up the packing slip names, then he came clean that he had switched suppliers and picked what he thought was the closest color to match. He assured me that he could bring a piece from the old supplier and it would match the new material. He brought out the piece the next morning, but it was substantially darker. needless to say he is ordering new siding at his cost.

I also asked his plans for the truss with LVL's attached to one side. He said he was going to hang that truss as normal then cut one half of the truss away and bolt the other half of the truss to the 6x6. I disagreed with his plan as it was not how the engineer drew it and it was not same to cut a truss in half. He insisted that it would be fine until I firmly said I don't care that not how I want it built order the other two LVLs. We agreed that he could bolt the LVL's to the truss on both sides, hang the truss and attach the LVL's then cut out the webbing so that the pitch of the LVL's would match perfectly to the trusses.

 

[KevoDesign]

I stayed home on Wednesday to make sure the trusses went up without issue. They brought in a crane as the 30' scissor trusses were relatively heavy. especially with the overhang framed on.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

The trusses went up in a couple of hours. They worked on purlins and roof framing for the remainder of the week. The image below gives the shop and patio some scale in relation to the house.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

 

[KevoDesign]

Friday afternoon I drove about an hour to go pick up the first load of retaining wall blocks. My trailer will only haul 70 of them at a time, so I brought the first 70 home. I also had minus and 1" clean delivered on Friday by a friend of mine. I dug the footers on Friday night and my boys (8 & 10) shoveled the minus into the bed of the ranger to build the footer.

Saturday morning we started around 9am laying block. I got the first course in level while the boys and my wife worked to fill the blocks with 1" clean.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

I had to run into town to get the drain tile pipe, and some PVC fittings to rough in the gutter downspout outlet that will go under the patio. While I was gone my wife and three kids finished another row of block. The Ranger made quick work of moving the blocks from the trailer to the future patio. Being able to drive through the barn to the patio garage door is already turning out to be a nice feature.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

We got the first 70 blocks in and back filled by 1pm. Then we left for a friends pool party, a cold beer and dip in the pool never felt so good. We still have about 230 more blocks to go, my wife and I both agree that a dingo is going to be needed to complete this job. I will be out of town this weekend, but plan to knock the rest of the wall out the following weekend.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

 

[KevoDesign]

The roofing started to go on today, you can get a good view of the LVLs now that the roofing is starting to be installed. I can't wait to see that truss cut out!

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Unfortunately this is all the farther they got all day today?

 

[hewey]

Really great design - you can tell you've spent 11 years planning this! The dual purpose use of the parking space for overflow entertaining space is really smart. Just one comment I'd make, which someone else has flagged, is to consider a covered access way from the house to the deck. So if you want to grill/barbeque on the deck, you don't have to try and dash between them with hands full of meat, plates and so on trying not to get soaked. And likewise if you have a party people dont have to get wet ducking back in to the house to use the toilet.

Great progress on your build too.

 

[KevoDesign]

Really great design - you can tell you've spent 11 years planning this! The dual purpose use of the parking space for overflow entertaining space is really smart. Just one comment I'd make, which someone else has flagged, is to consider a covered access way from the house to the deck. So if you want to grill/barbeque on the deck, you don't have to try and dash between them with hands full of meat, plates and so on trying not to get soaked. And likewise if you have a party people dont have to get wet ducking back in to the house to use the toilet.

Great progress on your build too.

I agree that it would be nice to have fully covered walkway from the back door of the house to the barn. I have not come up with a good way to connect it yet, I think that a permanent structure would look strange as it would be single slope from the barn to the back door like an awning, and the supports would be in the middle of the patio. I have been contemplating some type of sail cover, like the one below, which would allow me to accomplish the cover, but I could use steel cable to lengthen the connection points and eliminate post in the middle of the deck or patio. I'm certainly open to any other suggestions?

 

[KevoDesign]

Well progress is slow but it is moving in the right direction. They finished the roof last week except for the ridge vent, the roof really started to give the building some shape.

Untitled

The insulation wrap along with roof steel really makes it possible to start seeing the finished building. I took a couple of shots of the patio as well.





Then one from the road to show the full layout with the house.

 

[Chrisb62]

That looks awesome
Notice the retaining wall is no taller, still recovering from straining the back with all that?
I really like how from the road the Pool Barn doesn't take over the front view.
Awaiting for further progress.

 

[jbrentd]

As others have said, great job on the layout and the progress so far!

 

[KevoDesign]

Well I haven't been good on my updates, mostly because I have been busy working on getting ready for concrete. Spent the last several weeks working on getting the retaining walls finished while the builders we working on getting the siding, trim and gutters finished.

View from the patio looking up at the walls

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

View from the front of the house and shop.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Still need to order caps and pick those up, that might be a labor day project. I rented a mini-skidsteer last weekend with a trencher attachment and a bucket. Used it to back fill all of the clean rock and also to trench for power and water, man that thing was handy. Had a friend come by on Saturday that is an equipment operator so I let him loose to dig the last of the footings for the wall and he did this.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

I laughed pretty hard at him as I operated it all day Friday and Sunday without issue, but he managed to flip it in the 4 hours he helped me on Saturday. Trenched 2" conduit, one for the 200 amp panel, and one that will later house PEX for a slop sink in the barn, if the county asks its for communication wiring as I don't have the barn hooked to the septic tank.

From the house

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

To the 200 amp panel location, my oldest inspecting my work

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Second line to the back wall for the "communication" wiring

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

While I had the skid steer I went ahead and leveled out and put a fresh load of rock around the fire pit also. This was my wife's project, I just delivered rock and my oldest and her spread it evenly. She also did all the stone work around the pit, turned out really nice

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

 

[KevoDesign]

I wasn't happy with the steepness of the driveway, so I had my excavator come back and re-slope it, much better now, unfortunately it is going to need more retaining wall on the far side to hold back the dirt, so that is another project that will start soon. I'm going to talk to the concrete guys about just pouring a wall there.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

He had a lot of extra dirt left over so he surprised me with a level pad on the back side of the barn to park my trailer on. Love it when a contractor does a surprise that you actually like.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

I took a couple of shots with the garage doors in and all of the trim on the barn. My wife is going to start painting the siding on the house to match now that the kids are back in school, well as soon as the weather breaks a little bit.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

I spent the past Saturday drilling through the foundation and completing the conduit run into the house so that I can hook up the water line later. My neighbor had the right tool for the job, drilling through the wall took about a minute.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Now we are basically waiting on concrete and the electrician. Once those two are done I can install the HVAC and start working on finishing the inside and the patio.

 

[BORING HOP YARD]

I really like what you have done, thank you for sharing!

 

[Jagmandave]

Where is all the water coming around the end of the retaining wall at the house end and down the new driveway going to be directed?

 

[KevoDesign]

Where is all the water coming around the end of the retaining wall at the house end and down the new driveway going to be directed?

Very good eye, in fact there is more water than what you see, basically the entire front yard drains down into those two doors. The excavator put a 12 inch wide 18" deep french drain across the entire front of the building with 4" clean fill to start. When we pour the apron for the front two garage doors I am having a 12" concrete drain put in with galvanized drain grates like the one below. That will direct the water along the font of the building and down around the side and out the back. If that does not suffice we will be pouring a concrete "ditch" around the front and down the far side to direct it.

My wife really wanted the patio the same height as our pool deck which is how we ended up with so much drainage running into the front of the barn. I am hopeful that our plan will suffice to run the water around, however if anyone has better ideas on how to handle this I am open to suggestions.

 

[Jagmandave]

Nope, just wanted to know you had a plan - that will work, or be a good start at least! What part of Missouri are you?

 

[KevoDesign]

@Jagmandave - Thanks for the reply, I am keeping my fingers crossed that it is enough, the water coming off the front yard is what caused the flood in the basement. However there is always a solution so we are going to try this and if it doesn't work we will just have to try something else. I live south of St. Louis about an hour, just far enough that I am in the country, but close enough that I still work in the metro area.

 

[Jagmandave]

I'm at the the other end of the state!

We do get some weather here in the middle of the country, don't we? - rain, snow, sleet, ice, hail, humidity, tornados and 100+ temps - often all on the same day!

 

[KevoDesign]

If you don’t like Missouri weather just wait a couple days it will change!

 

[KevoDesign]

Slow week in the past week. I scored a new to me cyclone dust collector for the wood shop that I found on facebook. Super excited to have dust collection in my shop as I never have in the past, and I got a smoking deal on it.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

The concrete contractor showed up Friday to discuss the layout and see what he was getting into. We discussed the need for the drain across the front doors of the shop. He said no problem but that I needed to get the grates in before he started forming things up on Monday. So I went to a local steel supplier to get 27' of steel grates. I have a theory that anytime something really good happens there has to be balance, so it is usually followed by a less fortunate event, this rang true with the grates as steel is currently up 40% and I paid through the nose on the grates after getting a great deal on the dust collector. Oh well that's life.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

A coworker of mine just bought a farm that has a pole barn with an apartment in it. He wanted the apartment out and I offered to take down the walls in exchange for the 2x4's. Me and my two boys spent Saturday morning working here recovering 2x4x10' boards. Still need to de-nail them all but I scored about 60 for free, he was happy to get them out of there and I was happy to take them.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

On the way back from his house I also ran across a pile of log siding on the side of the road that was grey and weathered with a sign that said free. Since I had the trailer already I stopped and grabbed those as well. Not sure where they are gonna go yet, but I think they could make a cool accent wall somewhere in the shop.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Sunday I picked up some deck wash and gave the siding a good power washing and a spray with the bleach cleaner. My wife loves to power wash things so she jumped in to help as soon as she heard the machine start up. They cleaned up pretty good.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

After they dried out pretty good I convinced the boys to load them up and stack them on the patio under the deck in the back. That pretty much finished the weekend.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Concrete guys came and formed up the floor and laid rebar on Monday this week. They said county should be out Tuesday to inspect and the shop should have a concrete floor Wednesday or Thursday. I didn't get pictures of the forms and rebar yet but might try to still.

My electrician called also and the county permit is pulled, power company should be out this week to do a site survey and then we should get a scheduled date for the disconnect day to upgrade to 400 amp service. Things are coming together fast all of the sudden, but I have a feeling it will slow down a bit once I start on the inside.

 

[Sifan]

If you value your spouse's power washing help, invest in a pair of boots for her ... one nano second of inattention resulting in peeling the skin back on her foot and you've lost your power washing help.


20+ years ago: Honey, you should take off those flip flops and put on some boots.
Later, Why didn't you tell me it would take the skin off my foot??? Silly me, I thought I did

 

[KevoDesign]

Funny story there, she has two pairs of boots, and she even mentioned she should be wearing them while she was doing it. I do agree that she should be wearing them. I was after her a month or so ago to wear gloves while working on our fire pit area, she reluctantly got a pair on and about 5 minutes later I hear screaming and turn around to see a 4 foot black snake clenched on to the leather glove she was wearing. Shortly after that she eliminated that particular snake from ever being an issue in the yard again

 

[KevoDesign]

Well the electric company came out for site inspection today, the good news is the site is approved to get in line. Bad news is the line is 4-6 weeks long as they just sent several crews down to help clean up Hurricane Ida. I can wait though, the people there need the electric more than I do.

 

[KevoDesign]

Been quite a while since I have updated, almost a full month. But a lot has been going on during that time. I've got concrete in below is a shot of the garage floor all **** in grey

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Then the patio got poured over to the house:

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Note the puddle in the back corner of the patio, more on that later as it has turned into quite the story. Then finally the front apron and drain was poured:

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

What I didn't get pictures of during this was the concrete truck that got stuck when they poured the garage floor, the cable they snapped trying to pull it out, and the pumper that they brought the next day to pour the patio. But hey we aren't walking on dirt anymore so we got that going for us.

 

[KevoDesign]

While I wait for the local utility company and my electrician to work out a plan for powering everything, I have been working on cleaning the wood for the ceiling framing that I got from a friend that was doing some demo work on his barn. Reclaimed 86 2x4x10, and removed hundreds of drywall screws. I had some helpers the first day, but it was pretty much all me after that.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

After we got all of those cleaned up and ready for install, I hung some lights on the patio and ran temporary power from the house so my wife and I could enjoy a few drinks with the neighbors.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

The next morning I worked on cutting caps for the retaining wall, along the way of setting up I ran into this little guy. In case you are wondering he is no longer a resident of my property.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

 

[KevoDesign]

Caps for the wall are coming along good, although I had not thought about how many would have to be cut to make a curve wall like this. hindsight it would have had a lot more straight edges to it.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Note that the puddle is still on the patio in the background. I noticed that water does not seem to leave this space and after a little investigation realized that it actually has a 3/8" dip in the middle of that slab. I called the contractor earlier this week about it and his initial thought was to saw cut a diagonal line through the puddle to the drain so that it would drain.

I was not a huge fan of this solution as when the cut gets dirt in it the puddle will not drain and it appeared to be maintenance issue. Then the contractor told me that it would not be a big issue because its under roof, to which I replied yes but it is a pool deck. After some more discussion and him coming out to see for himself he has agreed to have that quadrant of the patio re-poured. They are suppose to cut and remove that section late next week with a pour early the following week.

I was a little dismayed that I had to argue with him about it but was glad that ultimately he stood behind his work.

 

[Chrisb62]

Caps for the wall are coming along good, although I had not thought about how many would have to be cut to make a curve wall like this. hindsight it would have had a lot more straight edges to it.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Note that the puddle is still on the patio in the background. I noticed that water does not seem to leave this space and after a little investigation realized that it actually has a 3/8" dip in the middle of that slab. I called the contractor earlier this week about it and his initial thought was to saw cut a diagonal line through the puddle to the drain so that it would drain.

I was not a huge fan of this solution as when the cut gets dirt in it the puddle will not drain and it appeared to be maintenance issue. Then the contractor told me that it would not be a big issue because its under roof, to which I replied yes but it is a pool deck. After some more discussion and him coming out to see for himself he has agreed to have that quadrant of the patio re-poured. They are suppose to cut and remove that section late next week with a pour early the following week.

I was a little dismayed that I had to argue with him about it but was glad that ultimately he stood behind his work.

It may be a lot of work with the curves but it makes it so much better looking. It is unfortunate about the puddle but sounds like in the end it will be all done right.

 

[jbrentd]

Looking good. Love the size of the patio between the house and shop. And glad to hear you were able to get him to fix that issue.

 

[KevoDesign]

Been a couple wees from the last update, the patio slab near the front has been re-poured and no longer leaks. I also found some time to finish cutting the retaining wall caps. Cut a total of 115 blocks with this little guy.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Pro Tip: Figured out near the end that it was much easier to lay as many straight blocks in a row as I could then lay one block at the intersection and angle both sides of the one block, instead of cutting each block as I went.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

But after several hours and a lot of dust that part of the project is complete. Looking up from the patio:

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

And from the front of the house:

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

My wife was cool enough to surprise me with the Mizzou flag for the front pole as well. Got it put up just before my sister in law ( A KU fan ) stopped by.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Then I started laying block on the opposite side of the driveway. Hoping to get this done in the next month or so and get the driveway poured before it gets to cold, but my kids travel soccer season, and in turn my coaching season is picking up so we will see how much time I can find.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

In other news, we have been battling with the power company over the new 400amp service. They conducted a load calculation and determined we needed a larger transformer to go to 400 amp, during that investigation the engineer from the power company determined that the power line, which hangs over the circle drive does not meet code as it is less than 16' from the base of the drive.

Their solution was to place a 35ft telephone pole in the middle of our front yard to which I immediately objected. I called the electrical contractor, who was pretty angry about the situation himself when I told him, he was at our house within an hour to determine a better plan. After much discussion it was determined that we would move the meter and incoming service to the front of the barn, bore from the power pole across the street, under the road, circle driveway and new barn driveway and pop up just to left of the front garage doors. The house will then be powered off of the barn.

I agree this is a much better solution than a telephone pole in the front yard, and it will be nice to have our utilities buried, however I'm not thrilled about the additional cost. But my wife put it best, "The shop is useless without power, and you don't want to come home every night and look at a pole in the middle of the front yard, so just get over it!"

So I conceded, boring is supposed to start tomorrow pending weather.

 

[Chrisb62]

I know it was a lot of work for the cap blocks on the wall but, in my (worthless?) opinion it looks great,and was worth all the work.
Bummer on the extra cost but I agree with your wife (don't tell her that) looking at a pole would really ****.

 

[KevoDesign]

I know it was a lot of work for the cap blocks on the wall but, in my (worthless?) opinion it looks great,and was worth all the work.
Bummer on the extra cost but I agree with your wife (don't tell her that) looking at a pole would really ****.

Thanks Chris, while it was heavy work, I am really happy with how it turned out so far. Looking forward to getting some dirt in it and planting in the spring. I don't have to worry about telling the Mrs. she's right, she already believes it

 

[wreckdiver1321]

Barn is looking good Kev, glad you got your concrete and power issues sorted out. Beautiful place you have there, and you're only improving it. Keep it up, can't wait to see how it all shakes out.

 

[KevoDesign]

Barn is looking good Kev, glad you got your concrete and power issues sorted out. Beautiful place you have there, and you're only improving it. Keep it up, can't wait to see how it all shakes out.

Thanks Wreck

 

[KevoDesign]

The electric schedule slide continues... Boring crew showed up yesterday to find that the utility marking company had marked my lot and the neighbors lot, but not the two across the street where the power pole actually is. So they could not start, talked to the contractor and he said they would be back next Tuesday to try again after the utility marking company comes out a second time.

Unfortunately that puts all of the plans for the inside of the barn on a stand still until the county completes their final electrical inspection and the code boys are out of my way.

At this rate I'm just hoping to have a panel box hooked up by Xmas. All I want for Christmas is....

 

[Chrisb62]

That’s a bummer.... keep your eye on the end game......this too shall pass (hurry up and pass) LOL

 

[Kevkx125]

Coming along great Kevo! hope you can make some more progress before winter sets in.

 

[jbrentd]

That paver wall looks great! And you'll be glad all of your utilities are underground. I think it makes things look so much cleaner.

 

[KevoDesign]

So since I am waiting on the power company for a few more weeks, and I had a Sunday that did not have any kids sporting events, I decided I would start cleaning up some of my tools in preparation for the move into the new shop. I started with my table saw, not in terrible shape, but 10 years of being left in a non climate controlled space and 10 years of doubling as a workbench in the 2 car had taken a toll on the top of it. Plus it was absolutely filthy.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

So I started with just brushing everything off, cob webs, grass, dust, etc...

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

The measuring tape for the fence has been slowly peeling off the fence rail for sometime now, I went a ahead and removed it today as well. A Starrett replacement is in route via Amazon already.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

I also found a temporary fix that someone made before my ownership in the fence. There is supposed to be two HDPE pads on the fence, apparently one fell off and was replaced with some folded paper. I'm going to see if I can just "borrow" a scrap from work on Monday.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

I ended up taking a razor blade and some mineral spirits to the guide rail for the fence. The adhesive from the tape took quite some time to get off. Then I cleaned up the base with some windex, just wiped it all down to get the dust and dirt off, nothing to major.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

The top was pretty gnarly, in terms of rust, old paint and stain etc. I took a razorblade and scraped off as much as I could to start.,

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

That definitely helped, but I figured I was going to have to get out the sander to actually get this thing decent looking again, so that's what I did. Starting with 240 I worked my way up to 400 grit dry.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

I left one section undone to see how much progress was being made, below is before and after through 400 grit dry.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Then I went wet sand for the 600 and 800 grit, mainly because the paper was clogging so fast that I had to.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

I cleaned all of the dust off then gave it a quick wipe with mineral spirits before I applied some polish. A lot of the youtube videos suggested using a different kind of polish or wax, but I had this around and figure it would help protect it. I might get something better in the future. If anyone has a suggestion let me know.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

Overall I am happy with how it cleaned up, got a couple more things I want to do to it like the fence pads, the tape measure, and maybe a new zero clearance insert and blade. Then once its in a permanent location I can calibrate everything and set it up long term.

Untitled by Kevin Martz, on Flickr

 

[a_thiel24]

I have had good luck on the cast iron tops using Johnson's Paste Wax. Easy and cheap.

 

[KevoDesign]

I have had good luck on the cast iron tops using Johnson's Paste Wax. Easy and cheap.

That is the one that was mentioned a lot on youtube as well. Guess I will get some of that and give it a try.

 

[Jayman17]

+1 for the Johnson’s paste wax. Your top came out nice.

Jay