New shop started!!!

[Joe Shinall]

Well, my shop is a 17x18 2 car garage and is just full as full can be. So we started building a 16x20 shop in the backyard to take some overflow. It started out as just being a shed and wood storage, but I have now decided to move tools out there.

It will house my air compressor with a line run to my garage. Also will house my planer and the overflow of tools that I do not use very often. As well as storing the garage things I don't want in my shop.

Was going to do a slab but this is a low area in my yard and I would have had to build the slab up 12 inches. So we poured 15 footers and set it up on 4x4's on concrete block. Built one of these at my dad's 20 years ago and it is still rock solid. Here are the starting pics and will update more.

[Van Huskey]

I an green with envy! I keep buying machines/tools for my new shop that I can barely store much less use and each time I release some cash my shop gets a little farther away from getting started!

Good luck and keep us posted.

[Joe Shinall]

Thanks Van. I budgeted $1500 and looks like we will hit that dead on before running the electric. Which won't be bad at all. Doing it ourselves and just running a small panel out there.

[Joe Shinall]

Walls are up! Not bad for 4 days of work. Especially since we're only working 2 hours a day. And especially since I've got a bad arm and I'm working with my wife's 63 year old Pappy.

[Joe A Faulkner]

Looks like you are making good progress. Are you planning a standard overhead garage door? Did you consider any windows? As you get a little closer to your father-in-laws age, your eyes will crave a bit more natural light.

[Joe Shinall]

Looks like you are making good progress. Are you planning a standard overhead garage door? Did you consider any windows? As you get a little closer to your father-in-laws age, your eyes will crave a bit more natural light.

I am just doing 2 32" exterior doors I picked up at a Reuse store. French door style opening. There will be 2 windows on the left side that faces the house. I have a friend that is giving me two but I do not have the measurements so we will rough those in afterwards.

Yeah we worked about 4 hours yesterday but because of my day job we were working into dusk. I just forgot to take pictures until it was getting dark.

[Bryan Wuest]

Joe,
That is almost exactly what I am planning on doing when I return back to the States after serving in Korea for over a year. I'll be home next month and have already begun the design phase (which followed the dreaming phase). Is this of your own design or did you purchase a plan somewhere? I used to be stationed at Hunter AAF there in Savannah and if I remember correctly, lumber prices were a little better than I'll have in San Antonio. I would be interested in any information you could share about your materials and design elements which allowed you to come in at 1500.00 such as siding, roof, etc.
Thanks,
Bryan

[Joe Shinall]

Hey Bryan, I actually do some contract work out at Hunter all the time for my IT company. Glad to see you're coming back and good luck with your trip back. I'm sure a lot has changed here in the year you've been gone.

Lumber here is actually pretty good. Precut studs are $2.54 and 7/16 OSB 4x8 sheets are $5.97 a sheet. This is our own design. We did it 16x20 to make the most out of 4x8 sheets of plywood and 16" on center studs.

Basically we drilled 15 holes 20"x20" a piece. 3 lines of 5 of them. We poured concrete in them to level and placed a cinder block on top of each to bring it up off the ground. Placed a 4x4 across the top of the blocks from front to back making 3 points of contact across. (If this is getting complicated I'm sorry, I dont know a better way of explaining it.)

We then built a deck 16' wide x 20' long and set on top of the 4x4's and shimmed where needed. Then it was just studding walls, standing them up, double plating up top, and sheathing to this point. If I can get a good drawing I will scan it with measurements to give you a better idea.

We will be building our own roof trusses and I will post pictures and measurements of those when I am done this weekend. Hope this helps get it into perspective and not confusing. I can answer specific questions better than I can describe the building.

[Joe Shinall]

Oh, and about the siding. Right now I am going to paint the OSB barn red and trim it out with white boards at the seams. Later on I am going to add T1-11 siding and paint that. That will raise the cost about $300 from the $1500 which is why I am doing this later.

I am buying used doors or making my own and I got 2 nice windows given to me by a friend that owns a construction business.

The roof will be shingled.

[Joe Shinall]

All walls are sheathed and nailed tight. Windows are roughed out. We just have a hold cut in the front, haven't framed up for doors yet. Still looking for some nice used ones. Preferably 2 32-36 inch ones. Will be doing roof trusses this weekend and hopefully if schedule stays on will be done by next weekend.

[Kurt Cady]

So what's stopping this thing from going airborne when the next hurricane/tornado/high wind comes through???

[Don Alexander]

weight will hold it for any but extreme cases no different than any other outbuilding of this type

you get hit with a tornado it wouldn't help if it was anchored beyond belief anyway

[Bryan Wuest]

Joe,
Thanks for the update, it was quite helpful. Your stud prices are about the same as mine but my sheathing is about .40 more so not too different. The only questions I have right now are your floor joists 2x8, 2x6, or 2x4 and what did you use for flooring. From the pictures, the joists look like 2x6 and the flooring looks like the same sheathing as the walls. Is this pretty strong?

[Joe Shinall]

Kurt, I've got about 1000 pounds of wood going in it along with my 80 gallon air compressor and 15 inch planer that weights over 475 pounds by itself. Along with a bunch of other stuff and the weight of the shed itself, as Don said. And if a tornado comes I'm more worried about anchoring my ass down than the shed.

Not too worried about some high winds. Savannah is in such a location that a hurricane has only a %2 chance of hitting us due to the pressure systems and the way the coast curves. The most winds we ever get are about 30 MPH gusts.

Bryan, it is 2x6. Right now we just have 7/16 OSB sheathing laid on to walk around, that sheathing will go to the roof once the trusses are up. Same sheathing that is on the outside walls.

The flooring is going to be 3/4 pine ply and it is very strong. I have it in the smaller shed in the back of the pictures and it's holding about 1500 pounds inside of just a 8x10 shed. If you have the extra money in the budget, a decking board would be great all the way across and then any type of ply or OSB on top of it. That is what we wanted, but it would have raised the cost another 500 or so bucks. I'm broke and out of room so I decided to just go with the 3/4 ply for an overall $200 cost.

[Joe Shinall]

Spent a majority of the morning laying out a jig to do the roof trusses, as well as all the pieces for one truss to use as pattern pieces. Went to Lowe's and grabbed all the lumber. Spent the rest of the day cutting all of the pieces with the patterns. By the end of the day we built one truss and sheathed one side for the rear and got it up in place so we felt like we actually accomplished something.

You can see the jig we laid out in the picture with my Pappy in the sombrero. We laid out the measurements and built a frame outside the measurements. So we lay the nailing strips down, lay the pieces down, and a nailing strip on the outside and nail away. Lift it up and nail from the other side and the truss is done.

Now we have all pieces cut so we should be able to slap them together tomorrow and maybe even get some up.