The making of a woodshop with pictures

[Barry Reade]

I hope it turns out OK but, it sounds like the standard contractor's soap opera. I will be watching and hoping you beat the averages.

[Dave Lessley]

I was thinking where would a family emergency take you that you would not take your cell phone with you.... Jail maybe ? While discussing this thought with my boss he suggested I might find something on the internet if he had been picked up.

It took a couple of searches and up popped an article from the local newspaper. I don't think he will be back to finish up the job. He was picked up on a federal warrant for trafficking high potency pot and ecstacy from British Columbia to Alaska, money laundering, tending grow farms in Alaska where a co-conspiritor was murdered. The murder has not been solved but he is not charged with it.

In case the questions are coming to your mind. I did my due diligence. He was licensed, bonded and insured. I called on his references and went and looked at the work he did and a custom home he was finishing up before he would be starting on my job.

Things have slowed way down on the project. Fortunately it was to a point that I can pretty much finish it with a friend who is a carpenter. I have been pulling wire. I have the 110v done and need to buy the wiring for the 220v stuff.

I chased down the roofer to finish the bathroom roof which was not ready when he did the main roof.

I have the roll-up door on order which will take about six weeks.

Pictures of wiring are not very exciting so once things start to happen again I'll get some more pictures posted.

[Don Bullock]

Wow, and I thought I had problems when I found out that my contractor lost his license and insurance, but failed somehow to mention that. I've fired him and hired another one. Fortunately I didn't loose any money in the deal.

[Ben Cadotte]

I am hoping that you did normal payment in 1/3rds. And since final inspection has not been completed, you have not paid the last 1/3rd!

[John Keeton]

Dave, check the material suppliers to make sure they have all been paid. You wouldn't want any last minute surprises with materialmen liens being filed. Hope everything works out for you. Sounds like you did all you could to protect yourself. The drug business is getting to be a real problem - those guys can make a lot more doing that than building.

I used to be a prosecutor and we prosecuted a 15 yr old kid that was employing 3 "mules", working UPS shipments out of Florida for prescription meds. He was CLEARING about $1500 a day. He did it all on his home computer in about 2-3 hours/day.

That boy has two addictions - the pills, and making more money than he will ever make legitimately the rest of his life. I'm not sure which is the tougher addiction.

Keep us posted on progress, and God be with you.

[Dave Lessley]

I am hoping that you did normal payment in 1/3rds. And since final inspection has not been completed, you have not paid the last 1/3rd!

He had been down from Alaska for just short of a year and was working on a cash basis for materials. I would give him money for materials as we approached each phase of the job. I had just given him the money for insulation, sheet rock and the doors. None of which had been deposited in the cash account for my address at the lumber yard he was using. But the timing was such I don't think he had a chance to do it before he was picked up. Labor I was holding back until work was completed.

To be fair at no time did I feel like he was ripping me off. He showed up to work, worked hard and did a fair job. He was receptive to my input and listened to my concerns. He sincerely wanted to make sure I was happy.

I think he made some poor choices and as I was surprised when I read about it I think he was equally surprised when they kicked in his door and took him into custody.

I just got caught in the crossfire.

He has a wife and 2 or 3 kids I pray for them and him.

[Dave Lessley]

I have a friend who has worked in the trades that came up last night and will be helping for the duration of the project. Working some evenings and weekends.

The roofer came back and finished the bathroom roof as shown in the photo.

I put the bathroom window in which you can see a corner of in the bathroom photo.

Almost done pulling the wire. 110V is done excepting two circuits. The outdoor outlets and the yard light up in the gable. Need to pull the 240V now. Last night the carpenter was working inside so I worked outside cleaning up the last of the sheet metal from the old building.

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Completed bathroom roof .........................Shot of some of the wiring
Metal walls on ground dismantled

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Just to show how small the.....................1969 Honda CL350 I picked up
bathroom really is..................................Left over concrete in the back

[Jerry Olexa]

wow...your shop project has ended up being quite an adventure. sorry to hear.

[Chris Kennedy]

Dave,

The shop looks impressive. And while it may have a small bathroom -- it has a bathroom! Put in a wet bar and you might very well have paradise.

It may be little consolation, but when whenever you are in a group of people trading contractor horror stories, at least you will win the "one-downmanship" contest.

Cheers,

Chris

[Clancy Courtney]

I definitely like the vintage Honda. Good luck!

[Dave Lessley]

Things have slowed way down on this build. Dang it!

Passed my electical inspection with no written corrections, one verbal correction and one suggestion. The inspector complimented me on my wiring job and said I would not need to call him back for a final that he felt comfortable that I would be doing it correctly.

The verbal correction was to replace my outdoor weather proof outlet covers with the bubble cover kind.

The suggestion was to use a larger box on my box where I have 10/3 with ground going in and back out to another outlet. He said it would make it easier to fit the wires and outlet in and easy to do at this stage of the game.

Now on to a little plumbing in the bathroom and insulation and we'll be ready for sheetrock.

I will try and get some more pictures going as things start to look different.

[Jim Becker]

Congrats, Dave.

The Inspector's correction and suggestion both make very good sense. The "bubble" exterior outlets permit something to be plugged in without exposing that connection to the weather. And the bigger boxes...something we should all do more often, even when working with smaller gage wire. Boxes are cheap and a little extra space to work can often be a nice blessing.

[Dave Lessley]

Couple of shots of the start of the insulation and one of the electrical panel.

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Man door is set

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Hit all the easy places for insulation that didn't require any cutting.

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Shot of the electrical panel. The two upper boards to the right of the panel are for the heater hanger. The lower one is for the surface mount thermostat.

Tonight I take a break from insulation and start on the drain and vent pipe in the bathroom.

Thanks for looking in

[John Keeton]

It's coming together!! Only a matter of time - and more money! Dave, it will be worth the effort when you finally get done. You should be able to beat the winter weather.

[Dave Lessley]

My carpenter friend showed up Saturday and we spent time putting in some framing for speakers in the ceiling, readjusting the frame on the pull down stairs and boxing in a spot for a paper towel dispenser.

As an after thought I came up with the idea of bolting a few of the old posts from the pole building in the wall for mounting my lumber rack as seen in the photo below. Unfortunately the windows are kind of in the way. I'll figure some way to work around that.

I finished the drain and vent plumbing for the bathroom and have the wet side brought into the wall. Now I need to figure out how to plumb the on demand water heater into the system.

And of course the never ending job of hanging insulation. I've pretty much hung all I can that doesn't need to be cut to a smaller size to fit the space. I had my 9 year old daughter go around an measure the distance on all the smaller openings and write them on the stud. Now I only need to look on the stud and know what size I need to cut. It gave her a chance to practice using a tape measure and writing fractions.

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4x6 studs for mount lumber rack. You can just barely see one of the speaker boxes in the upper right hand corner of the picture.

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Drain and Vent Pipe. The drain has a 1/4" per foot drop and the vent has 1/8" per foot drop. Running the vent up through the roof made me anxious but it turned out pretty good. I Will try to get a close up inside and outside so you can see what I ended up with.

Thanks for stopping by,

DaveL