rrrracer
Member
Greetings all! I figured since I've been pounding the search button here for a while now that it was about time for my first post.
After 20 years of running the rat race in the city, the missus and I were tired of the traffic, sirens, noise, lack of privacy, and general attitude of most high strung metropolis dwellers.
For 15 of those years, I ran a high performance/race shop that focused on production-based sports cars; the overhead was getting pretty out of hand however, so I shuttered the place about a year ago.
I doddered around doing some custom work on the side, but kinda felt like I was spinning my wheels... until about three months ago when a close friend approached us and asked if we would be interested in his ranch waaaay outside of town. Something about getting married...?
I offered my condolences, and promptly started loading up our stuff.
The property has a small cabin (~750 SF) that we now live in, which is great... but it is also equipped with a sweet 26x48x16 pole barn that is an open slate on the inside! A decent amount of space but not too big, lots of windows and potential. Just when I thought I was out of the business... this made it a no-brainer.
The view coming up the driveway.
The old shop that I rented was quite a bit larger (~7500 SF) but I'm much more interested in continuing with my custom work as opposed to running a full on race shop with staff and whatnot, so this is a perfect opportunity. Really just enough room for a couple of cars and all the equipment I'll need to do anything to them.
Like an operating room... for sports cars.
Having never worked with a pole barn, Garage Journal has been an invaluable resource. Just seeing what everyone else has been able to accomplish has been fantastic and inspiring! I'm really motivated to get this place outfitted and operational!
I've been working on it for about a month now in between getting other things up to speed on the property (cabin is wood heat only and I've been on overtime wood pile duty) so it's been a bit slow going, but now that the weather is starting to cooperate, I can focus my efforts on the shop.
That's my story thus far; here's some pics.
From the outside...
Inside with overhead door and 13x16 slider door...
...and the other side.
Uh oh, snow's starting to come down.
A nice shot of the inside with a couple of cars in place.
OK finally time to get to work. The trusses are 8ft apart which kind of limited my options for a ceiling. I was able to source some foam panels that were repurposed from a building that was torn down; got a great deal on them and worked well with the existing spacing.
Starting to lay the panels in place. My idea was to make it lightweight, simple, and inexpensive so it's basically an industrial sized drop ceiling.
Another angle of the panels. I also got the upper section of the walls framed and insulated.
Aah, finally starting to come together... and what's this.. LIGHTS?! Every O.R. needs those...
Here I have the ceiling almost completely done; there are a few panels and another light assembly outside of the shot that aren't in place yet because I still have a big pile of stuff there that needs to be moved!
One last shot of the front lights. I was concerned that the black color of the foam panels was going to hinder light output, and I'm trying to angle them so that they will direct most of the light to underhood activities, but they seem to be quite good about putting it everywhere. In that regard, I'm quite pleased.
That's all I have for now, hope to have more here in a few days. Cheers!
After 20 years of running the rat race in the city, the missus and I were tired of the traffic, sirens, noise, lack of privacy, and general attitude of most high strung metropolis dwellers.
For 15 of those years, I ran a high performance/race shop that focused on production-based sports cars; the overhead was getting pretty out of hand however, so I shuttered the place about a year ago.
I doddered around doing some custom work on the side, but kinda felt like I was spinning my wheels... until about three months ago when a close friend approached us and asked if we would be interested in his ranch waaaay outside of town. Something about getting married...?
I offered my condolences, and promptly started loading up our stuff.The property has a small cabin (~750 SF) that we now live in, which is great... but it is also equipped with a sweet 26x48x16 pole barn that is an open slate on the inside! A decent amount of space but not too big, lots of windows and potential. Just when I thought I was out of the business... this made it a no-brainer.
The view coming up the driveway.
The old shop that I rented was quite a bit larger (~7500 SF) but I'm much more interested in continuing with my custom work as opposed to running a full on race shop with staff and whatnot, so this is a perfect opportunity. Really just enough room for a couple of cars and all the equipment I'll need to do anything to them.
Like an operating room... for sports cars.
Having never worked with a pole barn, Garage Journal has been an invaluable resource. Just seeing what everyone else has been able to accomplish has been fantastic and inspiring! I'm really motivated to get this place outfitted and operational!
I've been working on it for about a month now in between getting other things up to speed on the property (cabin is wood heat only and I've been on overtime wood pile duty) so it's been a bit slow going, but now that the weather is starting to cooperate, I can focus my efforts on the shop.
That's my story thus far; here's some pics.
From the outside...
Inside with overhead door and 13x16 slider door...
...and the other side.
Uh oh, snow's starting to come down.
A nice shot of the inside with a couple of cars in place.
OK finally time to get to work. The trusses are 8ft apart which kind of limited my options for a ceiling. I was able to source some foam panels that were repurposed from a building that was torn down; got a great deal on them and worked well with the existing spacing.
Starting to lay the panels in place. My idea was to make it lightweight, simple, and inexpensive so it's basically an industrial sized drop ceiling.
Another angle of the panels. I also got the upper section of the walls framed and insulated.
Aah, finally starting to come together... and what's this.. LIGHTS?! Every O.R. needs those...
Here I have the ceiling almost completely done; there are a few panels and another light assembly outside of the shot that aren't in place yet because I still have a big pile of stuff there that needs to be moved!
One last shot of the front lights. I was concerned that the black color of the foam panels was going to hinder light output, and I'm trying to angle them so that they will direct most of the light to underhood activities, but they seem to be quite good about putting it everywhere. In that regard, I'm quite pleased.
That's all I have for now, hope to have more here in a few days. Cheers!
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. If you have a question let me know, I love m3's way too much.
