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Personal Workshop | In Town on a Quarter Acre

PAToyota

PAToyota

Red Skull Member
Joined
May 27, 2020
Member Number
1545
Messages
1,202
Loc
South Central Pennsylvania, USA
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I bought my house in 1993 (the structure to the left) and started building a workshop in the late 1990's (the non-color portion to the right). Unfortunately, this somewhat predated the whole internet craze and there are a number of things that I would have done differently if I had seen more examples of what others were doing. For example, at the time the idea of a "home" automotive lift seemed totally out of the question. Another foot of ceiling height and I could have done it, but I hadn't even looked into it.

Unfortunately, I hit some roadblocks due to a divorce and career changes. About 2010 I started making more effort to get back to working on and in the workshop and in 2012 started on an addition (the colored portion). Since then I've been making a point to be able to spend more time out there - particularly since 2015 when I started dating an artist who (nicely) demanded her own space for wood carving, clay sculpture, and other artwork when she moved in. Unfortunately, she left at the end of 2021, which was another setback.

The original workshop was divided up into automotive / metalworking downstairs and woodworking upstairs. The Lovely Lady has her space on the right side of the upstairs (as you face the building). The addition is mostly storage right now although the plans are for an automotive lift (I finally have the headroom) and to use it for "dirty" work - the plasma table, painting, sanding, etc. - while keeping the original space more clean - welding, wrenching, and other fabrication.

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Always up for a good work area,
I hope you have good neighbors, when I lived in town they bitched and moaned about everything I would do
......unless I was working on their stuff, then it was good to go:laughing:
 
Yeah... Funny how that works. Use the skidloader to clear out everyone's driveways when there is 28" of snow and you'd think I walked on water. Use the skidloader after dark to unload the trailer after driving all day and you'd think I'd been raping and butchering a busload of nuns and orphans...

For the most part, the immediate neighbors are ok. Everyone has their issues and I try to be respectful, but there are times I wish I was in the middle of several acres of buffer from anyone.
 
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As I said, in 2012 I put an addition on the original workshop. It had been on my mind since building the original shop, but the Borough forced my hand. I found out that they were updating their Zoning Ordinance and one of the "updates" would limit the size of detached structures. So I was able to get my plan approved before the new regulations went into effect.

The original workshop has automotive and metalworking on the first floor and woodworking on the second floor. The new addition has a single 9'x9' overhead door to match the two existing doors and a covered alcove at the existing man door with a man door into the new section too. The two sections aren't connected because the idea is to keep the "dirty" activities in the new section to isolate them from the "clean" parts of the existing shop.

I was all ready to start excavating, but Hurricane Sandy delayed that a bit.

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From there, I started the trenches for the foundations.

Dug down along the existing foundation wall (first picture).

Turned the corner and along where the new man door will go (second picture).

And turned the next corner to start along where the overhead door will go (third picture).

Corners take more time between moving the excavator and getting the corner all dug out straight. Straight lines go a lot faster.

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Then I went back to the far corner and removed a Rose of Sharon that was in the way. Man did that thing have a tap root on it! Then there were all the shoots that had come off the main one. My word of advice for the day is to never plant a Rose of Sharon if you ever think you might take it out again!

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With that out of the way, I worked on the back wall of the extension. When I first started looking into this, I talked to a guy with a TLB (tractor loader backhoe) and he pretty much said that between having the line of bushes (arbor vitae) and the electrical supply it was undoable to put a foundation wall in here. Basically, I'd have to take out the bushes and move the wall over to clear the electric.

However, with the mini-ex and some hand digging along the one side of the line once I got to it, it was workable. I would dig down to the line and clear out on the one side with the mini-ex. Then it wasn't too hard to dig down the last foot or so by hand on the other side and move the dirt over to the wider side so I could scoop it out with the mini-ex. I wasn't sure how much root structure I'd run into, but I only encountered two larger roots. As hearty as the arbor vitae are, they have a pretty compact root structure.

This was really my first project with the mini-ex and I found that it takes some skill to operate the bucket, stick, and boom all together to get a flat bottomed trench - as you bring the stick in, you have to curl the bucket up and raise the boom until you reach the mid-point of the swing and then start uncurling the bucket and dropping the boom as you come back to the machine. Although it is a bit of a challenge to master with the joystick controls, I really had a newfound respect for the guys who used to do this with the old backhoes with separate levers for each cylinder! :beer:

The one thing I hadn't really thought about as far as expanding the original workshop was where I had placed the electric. From the original workshop standpoint, it made sense to bring it into this corner but it was a conflict with this wall and foundation. It had seemed to be out of the way at the time. If I had given it more thought, I could have put this wall in with the rest of the foundation walls and it would have just been a garden wall. I did have the foresight to put the electric in a conduit in case I did have to dig near it. Much easier to work around than the bare cables.

As an aside, notice that the underground portion is 3" (what was required for the wire size) and then transfers to a 4" conduit before the two 45° bends and up the wall to the LB box. This allowed for much easier pulls through the conduit and more room in the LB to feed the wires through the wall.

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Unfortunately, Hurricane Sandy wasn't the end of heavy rain the end of 2012 and I had another setback after finishing the excavation. We got enough rain to wash debris back into the trenches and mud things up. So I worked to scrape the slop up for most of the trenches, but there were still areas that remained a mess and I didn't feel like digging another foot of clay out to get to solid ground again. So I picked up several 50# bags of lime, mixed that into the slop, rented a jumping jack tamper, and consolidated things.

A century and more ago, they'd make mortar out of lime and sand. Portland cement mortar is a fairly recent development. The lime soaks up the moisture and consolidates things. Plus, once compacted, it is less likely to absorb new moisture.

Got the rest of things cleaned up and started placing all the rebar, scheduled the inspection, and then I can start placing concrete for the footers.

The building inspector seemed surprised that I knew what I was doing - particularly the rebar and that I had geotextile fabric under the existing stone driveway. He said few people did either one and commented that with a block foundation wall, if the footer settled it would just crack along the mortar joints. My reply, "But I don't want it to crack..." Reinforcing is cheap insurance. For a couple hundred bucks I can be sure nothing is going to settle.

The reinforcing consists of three #4 bars continuous with #4 cross bars at 24" o.c. all tied together and set on 2" chairs. Also doweled into the existing foundation. Overkill, but as I said, cheap insurance.

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Unfortunately, with the late start in the season, the weather wasn't cooperating. My plan had been to do this back in August/September, but other things got in the way. Although things hadn't gotten too cold yet, that meant rain more than snow and that wasn't helping things.

I managed to get stone, sand, and portland cement stockpiled. Due to access issues on the lot, I couldn't get a concrete truck or tri-axle back in there and the project was small enough that the cost for a pump truck was out of the budget. So I brought everything in using my 3/4 ton truck. The local concrete supply is less than two miles away, so it wasn't a bad haul. A ton and a half does make the truck settle about four inches, though... 😀 [first and second pictures]

As I said, the rain was an issue. I regularly had to drain water out of the one area of the trench. [third picture]

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A couple weeks before Christmas I finally got the footers placed. That weekend it was supposed to start raining overnight Saturday to Sunday, so I thought I was only going to be able to work Saturday. But Sunday dawned with no rain and the weather report was saying the rain was coming in later in the evening, so I got another day's worth of work in and finished everything up.

First picture shows the progress of placing the footers.

Second picture is of my mixing setup. I have a little electric concrete mixer. Well, maybe not little compared to the ones that places like Harbor Freight and Lowes sell. It does a pretty nice job. A cubic foot of portland cement, two cubic feet of sand, four cubic feet of stone, and about six gallons of water. For reference, at those proportions six batches make a cubic yard of concrete. I made a nice dent in the sand and stone stockpiles.

The weather had been warm during the day - for December, but was getting below freezing at night, so I had to cover things up. Concrete is exothermic - gives off its own heat - but with the nighttime temperatures I didn't want it freezing up. So, as the final picture shows, some $4 Harbor Freight moving blankets and a layer of straw were used to keep things warm.

With the footers placed, I got the block delivered.

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Unfortunately, from there the winter weather kept things at a standstill. If it was above freezing, it was raining - or the recent rains had everything a muddy mess. :rolleyes: So spent the winter working on other projects and waiting for spring.

Spring finally came, the foundation inspection passed, L-bolts were grouted in place, sill seal was down, and I was working on getting the sill plates bolted in place. I parged the exterior of the walls for a cleaner look than bare block. and had picked up some billboard tarps to try to keep things covered and dry.

Second picture is a closeup to better show what is going on. L-bolts are grouted into the cells of the top row of blocks, sill seal is run across the tops of the blocks,and then pressure treated sills are bolted in place.

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arse_sidewards said:
What's the orange in your trench? Conduit?
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Yes. You'll see earlier that I had the electrical conduit for the original shop running alongside the back wall. That's the furthest one. The closer ones are conduit to run communication wires and a water line. I painted it orange to make sure it didn't get missed and accidentally hit.
 
From there, I picked up the first load of lumber, set up a station for the miter saw, and got to work framing up the walls. I'm using 2x6 framing for extra insulation.

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I was doing my best to keep space above the door fairly tight, so I used a steel beam and tube columns for the overhead door lintel.

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Again, to keep things nice and tight, I ended up with one of the anchor bolts on each side inside the column. So I epoxied the anchor bolts and base plate in place and then welded the columns to the baseplates.

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Getting the beam into place got a bit interesting - particularly doing it all by myself. The ratchet straps got it 80% of the way up and then the HF lift table and a few blocks were able to push it the last part of the way. Again, once everything was in place it was all welded.

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The next step was the ridge beam. I wanted a cathedral ceiling in this space for the headroom and also wanted to be able to use the beam as a lifting point. Spanning over 20’ meant that was one big-a** beam! I had initially been convinced to go with an LVL, but when it was delivered it was half again as heavy as they had told me to expect. For doing things yourself, that makes a difference. I really should have just stuck with steel.

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Interested to see what your roof trusses come out looking like. I'm planning a a laminated gothic arch for my shop for what I suspect are very similiar space reasons.
 
I cut through the roof of the existing workshop and down through the wall framing so that I could run the column down to the knee wall. Then it was just a matter of threading the column down through the hole from the top. One advantage of using steel over wood is that you can “fix” it. I had some existing wiring runs that would have been a pain to pull out or re-run. So I notched the column and then welded the slice back into the column. You can see the beam saddles lined up and ready for the beam. I used a roof vent boot and some peel-n-stick flashing to seal up the column through the roof temporarily. Then it was a matter of lifting that big honkin’ beam into place. Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty but nobody got injured and leave it at that… ;)

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The local surplus store had a five-gallon bucket of grey paint for $20, so I put that down on the sheathing to give me some more time to work. Again, working by myself meant that I wasn’t out there every day for eight hours until it got done. So the paint helped keep things from deteriorating.

Tar paper and shingles followed and went down pretty quickly. Fast enough that I didn’t really get “in progress shots” of that stage.

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The next step was getting things closed in by installing the overhead door. It’s not complicated, but there was a bit of trial and error to get everything adjusted right. I’m sure an installer would know all the tricks and get it on the first try. The basic steps were assembling all the hardware onto the door panels, putting the vertical tracks up on either side of the opening, and then just stacking the panels in the tracks and connecting them. The spring and “horizontal” tracks (these were diagonal, since they follow the roof pitch) were then installed and the spring was wound to apply tension. Keep the tracks a bit loose (they have elongated holes) and use the panels themselves to adjust the width required for the tracks. The rollers also move in and out to accommodate variations, but it works better to have the tracks mostly trued up.

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Then it was on to siding and trim - HardiPanel and battens to give it a board and batten look. Then on to getting the painting finished up on the addition and changing the original workshop over to match the house.

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With the exterior under control, I took some time to get the interior wall of the original shop buttoned back up.

With the column being a bit “thicker” than a 2x4, I butted 1/2” drywall up to either side of it (the original drywall is all 5/8”), fastened expanded metal lath over that and the column, and then plastered over everything to blend it all in. It did make for more sanding, but fortunately I have a Porter Cable drywall sander in my arsenal. I bought it used and between the house and shop and family and friends, it gets a fair amount of use and I haven't gotten around to selling it again. After the primer and paint dried, I hung the storage cabinet back up and got things a bit more organized once again.

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Working towards getting things more organized, I picked up some pallet racking off craigslist. Tenants had changed for a landlord and the old tenant had left the racking behind. The landlord just wanted it out of the way and the price was basically less than scrap. I took some time to get it cleaned up and repainted to go in the one back corner for storage of heavier items to get them off the floor.

We had a clear, sunny weekend so I was able to move a bunch of stuff out to the driveway and get the pallet racks all in place. The Lovely Lady and I were able to put together the floor panels, finish up insulating the ceiling, put up the ceiling panels, and got the light back in place.


These pallet racks weren’t originally planned, but they fit in there like the space was designed for them. The last bay between the beam and the exterior wall is just the width for two pallet racks, the stairs are the width of one pallet rack, and from the back wall to the face of the stairs is just the length of two pallet racks. The pallet rack uprights were three “segments” tall (crossbars and diagonal braces), so I had to cut a “segment” off to fit my ceiling height - but that one segment brought them to the perfect height. I also had to cut the one upright under the stair a bit more to get it to fit in. That was the only “non-modular” alteration.

I also added a couple folding steps to the middle upright to make it easier to climb up to get to things on the rack.

Then I just had to get to work sorting things out and getting them up on the racks so that I had some more floor room to work.

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PAToyota said:
Working towards getting things more organized, I picked up some pallet racking off craigslist. Tenants had changed for a landlord and the old tenant had left the racking behind. The landlord just wanted it out of the way and the price was basically less than scrap. I took some time to get it cleaned up and repainted to go in the one back corner for storage of heavier items to get them off the floor.

We had a clear, sunny weekend so I was able to move a bunch of stuff out to the driveway and get the pallet racks all in place. The Lovely Lady and I were able to put together the floor panels, finish up insulating the ceiling, put up the ceiling panels, and got the light back in place.


These pallet racks weren’t originally planned, but they fit in there like the space was designed for them. The last bay between the beam and the exterior wall is just the width for two pallet racks, the stairs are the width of one pallet rack, and from the back wall to the face of the stairs is just the length of two pallet racks. The pallet rack uprights were three “segments” tall (crossbars and diagonal braces), so I had to cut a “segment” off to fit my ceiling height - but that one segment brought them to the perfect height. I also had to cut the one upright under the stair a bit more to get it to fit in. That was the only “non-modular” alteration.

I also added a couple folding steps to the middle upright to make it easier to climb up to get to things on the rack.

Then I just had to get to work sorting things out and getting them up on the racks so that I had some more floor room to work.

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I'm going to have to steal your step idea for my pallet racking...

Aaron Z
 
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