I've been here for a bit now and have gotten a ton of help from members. I thought I should make a thread to chronicle my 'build' this far and try to keep it updated as the building progresses.
in '13 my wife and I were finally able to get out of our house of 10 years and upgrade to a newer house on 5 acres. One of the coolest options for me was the 40' x 60' steel shed on the property. It had been built about 5 years previously. It was just the frame, dirt floor, no driveway. The original owner put it over 300' from the house....not optimal, but I have come to like it.
Here is what it looked like when we bought the house:
Here is the start of the 300' long 6' deep trench I dug to lay natural gas lines, water, and electric. I ran enough power for a 100amp box+. Should be good for awhile. Starting to fill up!
After the electric was run, I just had the panel hung. It sat like this for about a year, then I had the driveway cut in. SInce it was a farm about 10 years ago, Iwe had to dig down over 18" in some parts, then brought in tons of gravel to lay the base. Over 300', I have an aerial pic further down.
Then, because I do what I do, I designed the plumbing. It changed slightly from this, but it helped me figure out how I wanted to lay everything out.
Then hand dug all the trenches.....because I was too dumb to rent the excavator again.
I had help procuring materials
Also added a trench style floor drain. This the mason dug.
Then the concrete! All 6" thick fiber reinforced, including a 40' x 40' pad in front of the shed.
Here is a view from the sky:
Then spray in closed cell insulation, I was going to do it myself, but after reading about how many ways you could screw it up, I decided to hire a guy.
At this point I replaced the 12'x12' uninsulated door with an identical looking insulated door (anyone want a complete uninsulated door??? I don't know what to do with the almost brand new old one)
I don't have a good pic of specifically this, but I then painted (not the best paint job) the underside of the roof and the walls down to about 8' white. You can sort of see it here and you'll see it in later pics.
Here we move in the junk:
Then I installed a lift. They say it can't be done by yourself.....I should have videoed the progress, I did the install by myself....yes it was heavy, haha.
At this point my electric consists of my panel with a cord going to a giant, sun-like halogen light in the center of the shed and another cord going to the garage door opener.
I had the electric put in to a basic extent, conduit around with several drops. I will add more as I go. They also put all the sockets for the light layout.
And....it seems I didn't take many good pics of this.
But.....here are the lights. Optec High bay LED units. The shed is completely filled with light. I still have a stupid grin on my face when I flip these on.
After the lights were up I had the office and bathroom roughed in
Also in this pic you can see the original tiny furnace i hung just after the shed was spray foamed. It's the little big Maxx furnace from Northern. Believe it or not this thing handily keeps the heat at 50° in the sub zero WI winter. A true testament to the quality of this spray foam.
Kids had to check out the new loft space
The latest new tool I got
So, as you can see above the place is kind of a mess, but it's functional, and definitely a work in progress.
Plans, in some sort of order but not definite:
Buy and install a furnace and AC to replace little Big Maxx
Wire office and bathroom
Rough in bathroom plumbing
Drywall office and Bathroom
Finish Office and Bathroom
Run air lines throughout shed
Build workbenches
Add more shelving to clean up mess
Finish concrete on 300+ feet of driveway.....this is probably the most expensive part.
in '13 my wife and I were finally able to get out of our house of 10 years and upgrade to a newer house on 5 acres. One of the coolest options for me was the 40' x 60' steel shed on the property. It had been built about 5 years previously. It was just the frame, dirt floor, no driveway. The original owner put it over 300' from the house....not optimal, but I have come to like it.
Here is what it looked like when we bought the house:
Here is the start of the 300' long 6' deep trench I dug to lay natural gas lines, water, and electric. I ran enough power for a 100amp box+. Should be good for awhile. Starting to fill up!
After the electric was run, I just had the panel hung. It sat like this for about a year, then I had the driveway cut in. SInce it was a farm about 10 years ago, Iwe had to dig down over 18" in some parts, then brought in tons of gravel to lay the base. Over 300', I have an aerial pic further down.
Then, because I do what I do, I designed the plumbing. It changed slightly from this, but it helped me figure out how I wanted to lay everything out.
Then hand dug all the trenches.....because I was too dumb to rent the excavator again.
I had help procuring materials
Also added a trench style floor drain. This the mason dug.
Then the concrete! All 6" thick fiber reinforced, including a 40' x 40' pad in front of the shed.
Here is a view from the sky:
Then spray in closed cell insulation, I was going to do it myself, but after reading about how many ways you could screw it up, I decided to hire a guy.
At this point I replaced the 12'x12' uninsulated door with an identical looking insulated door (anyone want a complete uninsulated door??? I don't know what to do with the almost brand new old one)
I don't have a good pic of specifically this, but I then painted (not the best paint job) the underside of the roof and the walls down to about 8' white. You can sort of see it here and you'll see it in later pics.
Here we move in the junk:
Then I installed a lift. They say it can't be done by yourself.....I should have videoed the progress, I did the install by myself....yes it was heavy, haha.
At this point my electric consists of my panel with a cord going to a giant, sun-like halogen light in the center of the shed and another cord going to the garage door opener.
I had the electric put in to a basic extent, conduit around with several drops. I will add more as I go. They also put all the sockets for the light layout.
And....it seems I didn't take many good pics of this.
But.....here are the lights. Optec High bay LED units. The shed is completely filled with light. I still have a stupid grin on my face when I flip these on.
After the lights were up I had the office and bathroom roughed in
Also in this pic you can see the original tiny furnace i hung just after the shed was spray foamed. It's the little big Maxx furnace from Northern. Believe it or not this thing handily keeps the heat at 50° in the sub zero WI winter. A true testament to the quality of this spray foam.
Kids had to check out the new loft space
The latest new tool I got
So, as you can see above the place is kind of a mess, but it's functional, and definitely a work in progress.
Plans, in some sort of order but not definite:
Buy and install a furnace and AC to replace little Big Maxx
Wire office and bathroom
Rough in bathroom plumbing
Drywall office and Bathroom
Finish Office and Bathroom
Run air lines throughout shed
Build workbenches
Add more shelving to clean up mess
Finish concrete on 300+ feet of driveway.....this is probably the most expensive part.
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I also spray foamed my barn, great investment! The plasma cutter is a cool addition, always interested in seeing it in action...I'm subscribing to see whats next 
, but it was specifically named for understanding, we have an attached garage, so garage was out (my kids kept asking 'which garage' haha) and growing up, 'The shop' always referred to my dads HVAC shop, so that wasn't right for me. So....Shed it was!