your shop

[Silver R/T]

Just had this idea of everyone posting your shop pics, specs, share with us

[John_Kunkel]

I'll vie for the title of the "most cluttered".

http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=1751254&a=13489737&f=

[Silver R/T]

hey i wouldnt kick viper out

[69bananabeast]

if shop can be  meant as garage then mine would polly has mroe junk all over the place.

[NHCharger]

I have some pics during construction. Haven't taking any lately.
Building is 30x88. Shop is 30x50 with 11' ceilings. Only have one garage door 12x8. Should have gone with 2 doors but with the amount of wind we get here in the winter I was afraid the heating cost would be outta sight. The garage area is 30x38. two bays are for my cars, one bay 16x30 is filled with my contractor tools and other valueable junk. Oh yeah, my brother called last year, was moving and needed to store some stuff in my garage, would be out in a year

[TeeWJay426]

I have some pics during construction. Haven't taking any lately.
Building is 30x88. Shop is 30x50 with 11' ceilings. Only have one garage door 12x8. Should have gone with 2 doors but with the amount of wind we get here in the winter I was afraid the heating cost would be outta sight. The garage area is 30x38. two bays are for my cars, one bay 16x30 is filled with my contractor tools and other valueable junk. Oh yeah, my brother called last year, was moving and needed to store some stuff in my garage, would be out in a year

You win this thread Brian... wish that was in my yard!

[NHCharger]

Yeah I kinda went overboard. Except for the concrete work and around $ 2,500. in outside labor I built it myself. It took me 2 years. I did have my two sons help hang sheetrock and install windows. Nothing like involunteer labor from your kids.
Here's a pic of my wife and youngest son helping me frame the walls.

[Charger_Fan]

Hey, at least your youngest looks like he's having fun with that nail gun!
That's a great lookin' area & a nice looking garage too!



J.K., that old Sun emissions machine kills me! That's friggin' cool, right along with all that other old stuff (metal lathe, band saw, sheet metal brake(s), horizontal band saw...) very cool. Did you get them all from the same surplus sale?
That's the kind of thing I cut my teeth on...back in the day.

Oh & the wash cabinet...those tranny housings aren't looking very dirty.

[hotrod98]

This is the shop at the house. Won't hold all of the cars so we're building an eight car garage. I'm going to need the room in the shop to build the daytona and superbird clones. (As time and money allows that is.)
My 69 Charger and 69 runner are  kept up the street in another shop. They will come home when the new garage is finished.
The red 71 cuda is my driver, the 69 bee is a survivor, the lime 73 is my wife's driver and the 70 chal convert is getting the hemi soon. The unfinished cars are in another building out back waiting for their day.

[derailed]

nice!!! what are the dimensions on that garage. thats about what i would like to put up.

[hotrod98]

40' wide by 50' deep with 12' side walls. The taller sidewalls help keep the shop cooler in the summer months which is critical here in the south. Also, you need 12' sidewall for a lift if you're going to place it close to the wall. I have one 18' door and one 12 ' door in the front and one 12' door in the back for a crossdraft.
I was told that after 12' tall the cost goes up quite a bit. Not sure though.

[derailed]

Wow thats big, I think ill only be able to go 30 wide due to my property boundry but that will be plenty.

[8WHEELER]

My 40x60 dog house when I come in to late  ,  oh and my two fastest rigs 

Dan

[Chargerguy74]

40' wide by 50' deep with 12' side walls. The taller sidewalls help keep the shop cooler in the summer months which is critical here in the south. Also, you need 12' sidewall for a lift if you're going to place it close to the wall. I have one 18' door and one 12 ' door in the front and one 12' door in the back for a crossdraft.
I was told that after 12' tall the cost goes up quite a bit. Not sure though.

Makes sense, after 12 feet you're into another sheet of plywood, and all around too.

I'd like to see more pics of shops, as I'm currently in the planning stages.

[4402tuff4u]

Wow!! you guys have some beautiful garages and shops. If you saw mine you would throw up. Some day I would love to have a barn/shop/garage like those posted, where I could work on my Charger or walk in without having to move things out of the way.

It's too expensive here in metro NY to own a lot where you can have a garage like that. Upstate you could.

[RD]

man my garage is like leaning in and one bay door wont open.  of course it was built in 1932, but hey, the concrete is still there, kinda

[mustanghater]

think of a long shoe box. Got a picture yet? thats the reason I don't have a car.Can't wait till the garage gets built.

[ChargerAndy]

Mine is in progress.....garage space will be 33X24, over all it will be an attached addition 40X24, two story with garage and entry foyer on the first floor and rentable apartment above....... I've got a ways to go yet, just getting the footing forms in!   Andy

[Old Moparz]

I was making room for the Road Runner over the weekend & snapped these. I'll be getting a dumpster this fall, I'm officially out of room.

[Steve P.]

My 40x60 dog house when I come in to late   ,   oh and my two fastest rigs  

Dan

This must be Tim Allen in disguise...

[hotrod98]

I was 44 years old before I finally had a decent place to work on my cars. I kept waiting to have the cash to buld it and decided one day that I had better borrow the money or I would never own a shop. Less than a year later the interest rates dropped, I refinanced my home and saved enough to pay for the shop entirely. I'm not smart enough to have planned it that way...just dumb luck.
Now I need to borrow enough to build the new storage garage so I can have enough room to work in the shop without putting cars outside all of the time. Wonder what the interest rates will do next year?

[Old Moparz]

I was 44 years old before I finally had a decent place to work on my cars. I kept waiting to have the cash to buld it and decided one day that I had better borrow the money or I would never own a shop. Less than a year later the interest rates dropped, I refinanced my home and saved enough to pay for the shop entirely. I'm not smart enough to have planned it that way...just dumb luck.
Now I need to borrow enough to build the new storage garage so I can have enough room to work in the shop without putting cars outside all of the time. Wonder what the interest rates will do next year?

I'd swear I could have typed this myself.     I've always rented a single car garage or used a "Cover-It" tent garage for years. Worked in the gravel driveway where nuts, bolts & small parts vanish before your eyes. After waiting 20 years of wanting my own shop, I finally broke ground. (That was about 1997.) Since I did it myself I saved enough money to pay cash as I went along. (Under $15K) Took me a year to build most of it, but it was worth the wait. Now I need to build another one, or I should just get rid of something else.

[MoparYoungGun]

Trust me, you don't want to see my "shop". Just picture this, a cluttered two car garage with tons a crap falling off the shelves and tons of $h!t piled everywhere. Sounds amazing doesn't it . Hopefully, next summer I will get a dumpster and clean the whole thing out and then organize it all. Then, I will either do it and get someone to insulate the walls and ceiling. I also have plans to set up a work bench, etc. in a back corner. For some reason I just couldn't find the time this summer.

[hotrod98]

Bob,
I like the looks of your shop. I really wanted to build something a little nicer looking like your's but I didn't have time to build it myself and it's very expensive to have a wood structure built. I ended up getting my 2000 sq ft shop built for around $12 per sq ft and a nice wood structure was going to be about 3 times that. I just priced a metal building for storing my cars and it's going to run about $15 per sq ft. It will be 12' high so that I can put 4 double stacks in and store some of the cars up on top. It will hold 8 cars.

[Old Moparz]

Hey Larry (hotrod98)

Thanks for the compliment. I had wanted to build a standard frame (stick-built) structure, but the foundation quotes I got were as much & more, than the whole budget I set aside for the garage. They went from $7000 to $16,000 with excavation.  

I went back & changed the design to a pole building, & only spent about $2500 for the 6" slab & the 20 poles in the ground. That's a substantial difference I ended up saving by not doing the foundation. The front is cedar to match the house, but the rest is vinyl over the plywood sheathing. One friend helped me with the electric, & the 120 cubic yards of fill I needed around it, & under it, I got from my boss for free. I'll never tackle a project that big again, but I'm glad I did it. Evenings, weekends, vacations, & even lunch hours for one year got 90% of it done.

The 2nd floor is full of parts, seasonal junk around the house, toys & whatever else I can carry up the ladder.



No Charger Fan, it didn't snow last night.

[4402tuff4u]

"Poles" ? That garage is sitting on timber piles?? How did you drive the piles and kept it cheaper than excavation work?

[Old Moparz]

"Poles" ? That garage is sitting on timber piles?? How did you drive the piles and kept it cheaper than excavation work?

They weren't driven, they were augered. There's a local pole building company that has a truck with an auger on the back. I marked out the ground where he had to "drill" & in 2 or 3 hours he was done. He went to different depths on each one, but only because he augered until he hit good, firm, soil & then stopped. One or two holes were about 6 feet deep, but most are roughly 4 to 5 feet. I poured 12" of concrete in the bottom of the holes inside a sonatube, & after it set, I placed a pole on each footing. One thing I didn't count on was that I had to tie the tops of all the poles together with the support beam before I backfilled the holes. The poles would shift & go out of line if I didn't. Once that happens, there's no moving them or pulling them out. That was a PITA with all the piles of dirt & gravel around. No level spot for ladders & all the diagonal bracing was everywhere.

This is a cool site to see what can be done with pole buildings: http://www.conestogabuildings.com/

Here's what one looks like under construction (not mine though): http://www.ecsis.net/~motorola/barry/polebarn/polebarn.html

This came up in a pole building search: http://www.jaysilver.net/pictures/cosmo/2/jodiBig.jpg   

Here's a sketch of a footing & pole: http://www.easybuildings.com/inground2.gif

[hotrod98]

It's amazing that you can use poles and still get the walls square. I would hate to see a building that I had built using that method.
My metal building didn't help the overall looks of my place. Sure wish that I could have done it in wood. Too late now, I guess.

[4402tuff4u]

I thought you were supporting your concrete slab with the poles and building conventional walls/studs above the slab. Now I get it. It's basically a "balloon" type of construction. Almost like post and beam type of construction. Nice job!! I can imagine the amount of work involved. Did you have one of those "build a barn" parties? 

[Old Moparz]

It's amazing that you can use poles and still get the walls square. I would hate to see a building that I had built using that method.
My metal building didn't help the overall looks of my place. Sure wish that I could have done it in wood. Too late now, I guess.

"Pole" is just a term, (misused maybe?) but the poles I used are 6"x 6" treated lumber. Post & beam is another term, but I don't recall if there's a difference. I do know someone who actually used round poles that were from a power company that took down a bunch to replace them. He had a local saw mill rip them into dimensional pieces he could use. I've also seen some semi-crude open pole buildings, more like pavilions, use the round poles. It's okay as long as you attach beams, headers & joists squarely.

You can really change the appearance on a metal building if you hated the look. I know I could've gotten a metal building too, but I wanted to match the house since I'm only 15 feet away. If I had acreage instead of just a lot, I'd have put up a metal building where I don't have to see it. I have seen a few very nice buildings recently that don't look like the typical metal ones. I suppose you could always change the facade

Check this metal building out: http://www.generalsteelexteriors.com/

[Old Moparz]

I thought you were supporting your concrete slab with the poles and building conventional walls/studs above the slab. Now I get it. It's basically a "balloon" type of construction. Almost like post and beam type of construction. Nice job!! I can imagine the amount of work involved. Did you have one of those "build a barn" parties?  

The second floor was conventional framing on top of the wood & steel girders I used over the first floor. I had intended to use trusses, but since I ended up working alone most of the time, I changed the plans to frame up rafters instead. There's no way I can raise a truss myself. I was glad I did anyway, I now have a usable 2nd floor.

No barn raising party, but I had a "spread the fill & gravel by hand party".   The guy I was waiting on with a small dozer never showed up, it broke down, so I had a cook out with lots of beer & soda. Told everyone to bring a shovel, & after moving it all by hand, nobody ever came back until I was finished with the building.  

The 1st floor ceiling.


Inside the 2nd floor.


(Sorry for the thread hijack.)

[Lowprofile]

Thanks for the great info guys. I've been trying to talk the wife into building a new shop. Now, I've got a whole bunch of new stuff to show her.
                                Thanks

[Old Moparz]

Thanks for the great info guys. I've been trying to talk the wife into building a new shop. Now, I've got a whole bunch of new stuff to show her.
                                               Thanks

Here's a good link if you haven't seen it already:

http://www.garagejunkies.net/index.php?

[yellowcuda]

Ours is almost done...started work in April this year.  It is an "L" shape and comes out to about 2100 square feet.  County put the limit at 2000 square feet so that is what they think it is.  The HVAC is going in right now and next is the lines for the air along the walls (compressor has a pad outside), then the insulation and sheetrock.  Still gonna be a few months, and we are already going to have to build a barn to put the tractor and loader in to make room for more cars.  But Jonathan is happy, he calls it his doghouse too. When we started building it everyone thought we were building a house at the end of our driveway, but now with the three garage doors they realize what it is.

[Old Moparz]

That looks nice & definitely more like a house. A/C? I think I like that idea. 

[Charger_Fan]

Wow, that's just a thing of beauty...

Hey, if you're planning any ceiling fans for upstairs, here's one Jonathan might like.

[Old Moparz]

Wow, that's just a thing of beauty...

Hey, if you're planning any ceiling fans for upstairs, here's one Jonathan might like.

I like that too, except I think I have an idea for the old G.I. Joe copters I still have. 

[yellowcuda]

That is sooo cool...Jonathan will love that!

[Silver R/T]

nice shops everyone