New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

I have needed a shop for the past 11 years that we have been in this house. I was supposed to build one 10 years ago, but it was always pushed back for some reason or another. I am kind of glad that I didn't build it back then since I only had one truck then and I definitely would not have built it big enough then.

My wife and I finally signed the contract on Jan. 31st of this year to build a a shop from Mallett Buildings in Iowa, LA. Due to the excessive rain we had through July not much was able to happen until recently. Once it started happening, it happened pretty quick.

We are building a 40'x50' shop with 16' walls and it will have a 40'x10' gable extension or porch as I like to call it. Here is the approved plan that I signed off on. It will have a 14'x10' roll up door in the center and will eventually have two 10'x10' doors on either side of the 14' door, although they will be installed at a later date due to running out of money right now. Those insulated doors get really expensive! I will be building lofts when they are done that will run front to back over each bay with the short doors for part storage to keep everything off of the floor. The center bay will be open to the trusses to allow for my 5th wheel camper to fit in there if I have to work on it. The building will be fully insulated to prepare for air conditioning at a later date.

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Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

Sweet!

Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

I'm going back in time here for a while, so it will seem like it is really moving fast, but it was quite a while before it seemed like anything was ever going to happen. I guess I will put dates at the beginning of each post so that it is obvious when it happened.

1-31-15
Step 1: Get all the trunks from the trees I cut down 4 years ago out of the way of the future building... But they are really heavy, so we got 20 gallons of diesel and set it on fire.

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Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

2-10-15
Step 2: I had to move my spare trucks so that they could cut down some trees in the back corner of the yard. I figured that I would just drag them around with Brown Sugar. It was all going well until I decided that it would be better with the neighbor's tractor. The next thing you know, the tractor is stuck... No problem, I'll snatch him out with the Duramax... Now, Brown Sugar is stuck... OK, let's go get the neighbor's truck. We did end up getting everything done and un-stuck, but my yard looked like a battlefield from the Civil War. :lol: This is when the rain really started setting in, as you can tell my yard was really soft and would stay that way for quite some time. In the first picture you can see the one car carport that I enclosed so that I could work out of. It is so tight in there that I can barely get around my truck to get the garage door open, and I haven't been able to actually work in there for a while.

On the plus side, I know what Brown Sugar would look like with the spoiler firmly planted on the ground now.;)

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Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

2-13-15

Step 3: I got 4 or 5 trees cut down to make sure there was enough room for the shop to go up. When he came back to grind the stumps down is when the rain would not stop and everything was put on hold until the summer.

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Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

9-3-15

Dirt guys finally showed up (that was harder than you can imagine). It only took them one day (when they finally showed up) to dig down to the clay pan and build back up 12" above grade and compact it.

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Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

9-8-15

I knew they were going to deliver the materials on this day, but I was out of town for work and didn't expect the crew to show up until a week or so later. They showed up an hour after the materials. I didn't even have a chance to stake off where I wanted the building on the dirt pad before I left. Luckily my wife knew pretty much where I wanted it and they put it in exactly the right place. They did a lot for only being there for 6 hours that day.

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Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

9-9-15

They showed up and got after it before the rain came about 1PM that day, so this only 6 hours of work again.

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Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

9-12-15

It rained for a few days and kept them away, but in that time I was able to get home and check out the progress in person. Since it was Saturday, I had a buddy coming into town and spending the night, so the only thing that I thought was going to get done on the shop was the two of us christening the shop by drinking beer in it. :lol:

Needless to say, they showed up and got to work since it was a beautiful day.

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Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

Just in case anybody was wondering we did get the shop christened properly. :lol:

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Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

nice shop, i do like the front porch :D

the only thing i'll suggest, since you mentioned air conditioning...
partition your shop so your not cooling 2000 square feet of 16 foot ceilings
no sense cooling all your storage area too

up here i worry more about heat and while i have a 50x50 with a 30x50 upstairs
i only heat 20x30 workshop full time, i can also heat an additional 12x30 fabrication bay when needed
having part of my space heated all the time allows me to walk into 45* heat on those -10 degree days :D

it would break the bank to heat everything

Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

Thanks Justin! I'm loving all the concrete in front of yours, I'm jealous.

Thanks Ogre! It's not even finished yet and I am already loving the porch. The front of the shop faces north, so with the sun in the southern sky right now it casts a lot of shade about 20 feet in front of the porch.

As far as the air conditioning, I haven't finished planning that out but I did know that I didn't want to cool all of it. The lofts are going to give an 8' ceiling on the man door side, and the other will be 9' or 10' to clear my boat, only the center bay will be open to the trusses so that the 5th wheel and lift will have enough room. I am already planning to have the ducting for the A/C run under the 8' loft to focus most of the cooling under it. I guess my A/C guy will have to help with the finish design of it. We'll see when I get that far in a year or two. I definitely can't afford it right now, I will have depleted my savings as far as I am comfortable with for the time being.

Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

9-13-15 Sunday

They showed up and got most of the roof sheeted...

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Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

9-14-15 They had another job to go to, so no work on mine...

9-15-15

They showed up and worked a whole day. This day was all about moving poles on the back wall to properly line up with the fronts to base my lofts off of. Then they were able to insulate and sheet the back wall. They also sheeted the font of the porch to allow them to finish the roof with the ridge vents and all. The front wall will remain open until the concrete is done so that they can pour the concrete through onto the porch and make ramps going though the doorways.

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Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

Today they showed up for an hour or so to finish screwing the sheets down and put up the corner trim on the porch. Now I just get to wait for the other crew to show up to prep for the concrete. They would rather that I wait until they have prepped it before I stub out my plumbing. Then we wait on the concrete to be poured so they can finish the front wall.

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Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

Congratulations Steven! That is a great looking building. Hopefully you eventually will be able to install air. I've dreamed of that for my shop.

Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

Wow! That's a good lookin' shop!

Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

That looks very nice!

Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

that porch is a good idea. I like it.

Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

Thanks guys! It's been a long time coming. I am just ready to get some concrete and finish the front wall so I can start the wiring and moving in. I have the one car garage, my entire computer room in the house, a 10x20 rental storage, and that dilapidated red 8x8 shed in one of the pictures holding enough parts to build 2, maybe 3 more trucks that needs to finally have a place to call home. Now that I think about it, I may have built it too small. :lol:

Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

My wife and I were just talking about the colors on the shop, she picked them out back in January and I was on the fence about it being too dark of a grey. Now that it is going up, we get the most compliments from friends and family about the colors. I was just telling her that even though I was afraid that it would be too dark, I knew it would look good because that's how I want to paint Oscar's truck. Then it hit me, that's EXACTLY how I want to paint Oscar's truck, hence the rendering from March 2013 that I did. :lol:

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Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

reminds me of my dad. White on top, lots of gray, body hanging low, and big wheels

Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

They got the grading and forming done for the slab last week while I was off in Texas working. I tried to stub up my plumbing this weekend to no avail. Even jumping on the shovel it only penetrated the dirt about 1/4" to 1/2" at a time. The dirt is packed so well that even the bobcat that they used when grading/forming had serious issues trying to dig it up. That is really good due to the fact that I know without a doubt that the shop is on a solid foundation, it just sucks that I have to dig it. Apparently, I need to rent a trencher, but it was too late to get one for this weekend once that was discovered. It is supposed to rain quite a bit this week, clearing up on Thursday. Hopefully I can get a trencher rented and dig/stub up the plumbing on Thursday. That will also be the only day that I have to change the oil and wash the Blazer before we leave out on Friday @ noon for the start of our Cruisin' the Coast festivities.

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Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

Looking good! Did they compact some fill or is your soil that hard? It will be a nice base for sure.

Re: New shop for the Blazer, truck, boat, camp, etc...
 

They compacted the fill dirt, my yard is typically pretty soft. Basically, they dug down to the clay pan (about 6"-8" in my area), then backfilled, compacting as they went until they reached 12" above the original grade.

Essentially, I got some damn fine dirt work for what I paid! :lol: