Frank's Workshop Construction Project

[Frank Pellow]

This thread also has related sub-threads. The titles of the sub-treads are:

- Frank's Wrkshop: Dust Collection Plans (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=7853)

- Franks Workshop: Electrical Plans (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=8251)

- xx

- Question re insulating the floor in my workshop (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=8790)

- Double doors for Frank Pellow's workshop ( http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=10575)

- Door to be built around an octagon window ( http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=12565)

- Question about my convolulted dust control ductwork (
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=14961)

- Frank's Workshop Construction Project is Complete (
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=15071)

- A new building added onto my shop http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=22018

- Free CD re the Planning, Building, and Equipping of my workshop
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=23882

- Restoration and Extension of My 31 Year Old Deck http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=43279


Within the "How Big is your Shop" thread that was so popular earlier this week, I mentioned my dilemma in the trade off between workshop space and vegetable garden space. Here (in italics) is an excerpt from that thread:

The plans, for which I have a building permit, are for a 24' by 18' building with a bite out of one corner. Once I subtract the bite as well as the width of the walls, I will be left with 345 square feet. The building will have a cathedral ceiling with lots of skylights. I will have the use of the old basement shop for storage and for finishing.

I could have designed a bigger building and still have been within the zoning rules but, as it is, the workshop will be crowding in on our vegetable garden (about 1000 square feet) and gardening is another major hobby of mine.

Once the snow melts and I can start staking things out, I will see if I can modify my plans (once again) to get the useable space up to 400 square feet. I hate to have to do all the redrawing and the recalculations, but it seems from what I read above that, some day, I will probably thank myself that I did.

I am happy to report that I did come up with a plan revision that adds 80 square feet of floor space and that only costs me about 20 square feet of garden space. My lot shape is strange, so the outline and sitting of the building is not easy. The solution was a T shaped workshop. I am attaching a sketch of the florr plan (finished about an hour ago). I appoogize for the quality of the photo -my scanner seems to have made the grid lines almost as dark as the lines that I have drawn.

I plan to report progress on this building over time. I am doing most of the work myself, so I expect it to take the rest of 2004 (at least).

To put things in perspective and to show how almost any building has to be an improvement, I am also attaching a picture taken about 3 months ago of me in my current basement shop.

[Tyler Howell]

Frank,
Let's put this into perspective.
You'll be too busy having fun in the new shop to be interested in gardening.
With your current shop you had to get out to stand up straight and breath fresh air....Thus gardening. That won't necessary any more.
At your Latitude the garadening season is at the most two weeks. Shop time is year round. Go bigger!

[Frank Pellow]

Tyler, of course your GO BIGGER advise is correct, but I am not going to follow it. I have to stop planning and start working. Every change to the plans (and this is the fourth major revision) costs me several hours spent re-drawing and re-estimating.

By the way, Toronto is further south than Minneapolis and we get a very hot summer here -great for growing all knids of vegatables.

[Frank Pellow]

The snow is now mostly gone from our backyard, so I was able to get out and roughly stake out the site and put up some skeleton frames to show elevations. To my dismay, when I showed all this to my wife (Margaret), she was not a happy camper. The building, in her opinion would be too intrusive.

So, early this morning, I went back to the drawing board, moved some walls, and lowered the roof pitch (reducing the height at the peak by 2 feet). Abut two hours ago, Margaret (grudgingly) approved of the revised building. I next have to pass things past the building inspector but he will be a much easier sell than was Margaret.

I am attaching a revised layout. The details in this one are much easier to see then the one that I posted yesterday.

A few other plans about the building:

- It will be on thirteen 12" concrete piers sunk 4 feet into the ground and each on an 18" base.

- The level of the smaller door is the same as the level of my deck and the door is about 12' from the back door of the house (with a wash room just inside that door).

-The floor, walls and ceiling will all be well insulated.

-I will finish the floors, walls and ceiling of the interior with good-one-side plywood and both the walls and ceiling will be painted white.

-The siding will be rough sawn pine board and batten. I have a supply of undressed pine boards that are really 12" by 1" and I will rip four battens from each board. The boards will have a solid grey blue stain
(and both sides will be stained).

-The roof pitch will (now) be 4 in 12 and the shingles will be decorative asphalt blue-grey.

My cost estimate is $24,000 (Canadian) which, at the current rexhange rate, is about $18,000 (US). This includes the little bit of subcontacting that I am doing as well as the cost of the Onieda dust collector, the wood stove, and gas space heater. I have also figured in sales taxes (which adds 15% on most things here).

[Mac McAtee]

Frank,
Now that the wife has approved it sounds like it is time to go back to the original drawings and swear up and down that was what she approved. (;-}

Just curious, why are you putting it on 4 ft. long concrete piers? That some requirement in Canada?

[Frank Pellow]

Sorry, I guess that my wording about the piers was confusing. The piers must be buried 4 feet into the ground to get below the frost line. They will only extend out of the ground about 3 inches.

[Kelly C. Hanna]

Very nice plans Frank....keep us posted on the construction process!

[Frank Pellow]

I have sketched out the dust collection plans and will post them on an auxilary thread.

[Frank Pellow]

I am attaching two recent photos.

One of the photos was taken yesterday morning from the roof of my house. (It’s a good thing I took it yesterday because the site is covered with snow this morning). On that photo, I have marked out the perimeter of the shop with duckboards. Also, in the back of the photo where the rear wall will be, is a small experimental section of the board and batten siding to be used on the building.

As you can see, I need to remove part of the deck before construction can commence.

Aside to Bart: We use the duckboards in our Square Foot Garden.

[Frank Pellow]

Here my major objectives for my new shop (the order in which objectives appears in the list is insignificant):

-Lots of natural light

-Good artificial light

-Good ventilation and dust control

-Ready access to the outdoors

-Free movement of goods both into and out of the shop

-A comfortable floor (i.e. wood rather than concrete)

-Sufficient room within the shop to handle sheet good and long boards

-Provide a location for a good stationary cabinet table saw, an adjacent (but moveable) jointer, and an adjacent (but moveable) planner

-Provide a location for a high quality stationary woodworking bench

-Good cabinets to organize all my tools and paraphernalia

-A place that is warm in the winter (but not as warm as my wife likes to keep our house)

-A great sound system to listen to music (all kinds of music -well not rap, but all other kinds)

-A place where the noise of my power tools will not disturb other family members

-A place that I can escape to when I wish to do so (in particular, a place with no television)

-A place where my friends and family will feel welcome and comfortable

-The building should be attractive and should enhance the neighborhood

I would be happy to hear of any other objectives that people think I should consider.

[Mark Rios]

Congartulations Frank. I'm excited for you and your project. What are the dimensions and spacing of your floor framing menbers? Are you going to double up on the joists where the heavy machines are going to sit? I sure envy you getting to design a shop just the way you want it. That sure sounds like a lot of fun. I look forward to seeing the progress pics.

[Frank Pellow]

Thanks for your interest Mark.

My floor joists will be 2x8 spruce on 24" centres. The joists will be placed on top of the beams rather than hung from them. The span of these joists (centre to centre on the beams) in the front part of the shop where I plan to place my table saw is 6'. In the back part of the shop, the span is 10' 6".

Mark, I had not thought of doubling up in the heavy machinery spot, but you have given me something to consider. As a minimum, perhaps I should go to 16 centres. My brother-in-law is a structural engineer and he has advised me about some other aspects of the building. I will seek his advice re heavy machinery considerations for the floor.

[Frank Pellow]

My brother-in-law has advised me to switch to 16" centres. He says that, with that, there should be no problem at all in supporting heavy equipment.

Thanks for raising this issue Mark.

[Frank Pellow]

I have been moving little paper cutouts around on my shop floor layout and I really do think that I have hit upon a layout that will be more than adquate for my needs. So, I think that I will be quite happy with a shop that gives me 420 square feet of useable floor space.

I will attempt to include a scanned image of the shop layout (in two parts) but I am having problems getting sufficient resoluton in the size of file that we are restricted to. Also, be warned that it will be necessary to look sideways at the images.

Here goes ...

[Frank Pellow]

I see that the left and right hand sides don't quite line up and that it is not very easy to read the captions but I guess that it is not totally useless so I will leave the diagrams. I will try to get some layout software for a future attempt.