beginnings

Well, here are the beginnings of my shop. Been talking about doing this for 10 years. This weekend I finally started building it after finally obtaining a design, building permit, and necessary utility clearances.
It isn't much, but it's a real start:


Here you can see the chief method of excavation. Hey, go ahead and laugh, but the thing actually works and I built it myself:



Final view looking towards the house. The building will be 16 X 24 feet with a six inch thick reenforced concrete floor (fiberglass fibers added to the redimix at $8 per yard) for some old American iron. Plan is to have the slab in by 50th birthday in December.

It looks like a very nice start. A 6" fiber-reinforced slab with some rebar in it is going to be stout!

How about giving us a few more tidbits...what are you planning to build here, steel building, timber framed, doing the actual building yourself or contracting the framing?

I also am curious as to whether you will have running water, and if you will have HVAC (even if those two functions are separate, ala electric-driven air conditioning and wood-fired heat)?

Inquiring minds want to know

This is going to be a conventionally framed wooden building, an off-the-shelf design named "shop-studio" by Country Designs out of Essex Connecticut.



Not a great photo, but maybe you can get the jist.

The real trick here is getting out of the ground. I've got a number of friends who have framed and completed all sorts of buildings, so once there is a foundation I'm pretty much home free, or at least into a world I know something about. I plan on doing most work myself.
First challenge came up yesterday, when I brought the small self-leveling laser line (PLS2 Pacific Laser Systems) home from work and discovered that when one side of the building is nearly at grade the other will be over three feet off the ground.
Fortunately, Betty Driscoll, the architect who lives down the street, came by this evening and noticed me preparing to put a set of batter boards four feet in the air.
"Well, of course, anything you do is going to look terrific, but if it were my building, I might think of doing something a little different," she said in her kind, soothing, quiet, knowledgeable, supportive, if-you-don't-listen-to-my-free-advice-you're-clueless sort of voice.
The result is I'm going to build it into the side of the hill somewhat and hire a professional mason to help out after I've leveled the site.
I'm really going for it here, but I'm thinking one can get into a lot of trouble if one doesn't know what to do with many yards of wet concrete.
I don't plan on running water, but am planning a small air conditioning unit and a wood stove to burn a bit of the scrap lumber we throw away every day at work.

Nice looking plans. I built a 16' x 20' addition
to a small (12x14) existing tool shed a few years back. I cool and heat with a small a/c unit and wood stove also. Are you going to insulate? I insulated mine and it's been easy to keep a shop this size comfy year round. Congrats on getting started! I hope you'll post pics of your progress.
Mike
p.s. I woul'd have loved to have that neat little excavator when I did my prep work for the slab

Will absolutely insulate. Plan on posting additional pictures as progress continues in coming weeks. It's raining pretty good now so am not sure that too much can happen for a few days.

Maybe the grade in your yard will allow you to build in a little extra hight. From what I see on the pic its pretty low. Some extra hight will give you the luxury off mounting an hoist, extra shelfs for storage above your head, better lightspreading etc.
Succes

Like yoyo mentions height is very good. When I built my shop I went with 12' ceiling and very glad I did now. I now have built a 10' high crane and have a forklift.
It must just be me, but the photos were so dark I couldn't see them.
Michael

Will take some more photos tomorrow. This has become one big-time excavation. Hope to get the footers dug tomorrow, mason is coming by for initial look on Monday. I'm very, very tired.

Some brighter shots. These are two of the same views in my first post after recent activity. No footers dug yet though.



And...

Congratulations on your new shop, I built my own almost 15 years ago and the only thing I am sure of is it is never big enough or tall enough. It has had several incarnations, cabinet shop, race engine building, now machine shop and I am happy every time I go out there. Your design is a very classic look and you will like all of the natural light that those windows let in. Enjoy every bit of the project and good luck. Doug Baker

Thats going to be a real nice shop,and I'm sure you will enjoy working in it when its done.I'm adding on to my 30x45 shop now its only going to be 15x25 for my machining.Only 8FT cealings because of it being on the high side of my shop.But I'll get by with it....

I have discovered how to ensure that it will rain nearly every other day. Start digging the foundation of something that is important to you...

10 a.m. on 10/31/06. Excavation for footers finished this weekend. The mason's here and the concrete truck comes in about an hour. Rain is forecast for late this evening so we're getting the footers poured before the weather creates an 80 foot lap pool.



Can't believe I'll be out of the ground soon. What a dig. We ran into shale on one corner, and in the end my son Max (17) and I spent a large part of the weekend just beating away at it.

please dont use fiberglass,it's a waste of money put in rebar instead, more structally sound and wont float to surface like glass, i have poured lot's of concrete