Tonight, with the help of a friend, we got my Model A garage organized or at least we made a dent in it and got a couple more cars inside. Now I can put my extra's in my truck for the Springfield MO swap meet this weekend. I look forward to this weekend all year.
Lot of really great shops here. We are planning to move out into the country when I retire, and I'm always thinking about the next shop. One of my concerns is having all my eggs in one basket. Fear of fire or tornado, that sort of thing. So when I dream, it looks like several smaller buildings scattered around with distance between. Also, I'm most content when I'm fabricating, and it's tough to maintain a showroom with perfect paint jobs and trophies and trinkets when there's sparks flying and grinder dust everywhere, so more reason to divide it up.
I started with an attached garage. Later built a large shop building and expanded it with a leanto off the back. The leanto allows me a low roof cheap expansion to put rollable tools in as well as some stationary large tools and a dedicated workbench for engine work. Then I added (at different times) a couple of 16x30 metal buildings. One houses a large sandblaster with an outside vacuum under an overhang where I can store rear ends on a rack. The other was built as a place to store a car or tractor and some things that are easily rolled outside. I built the walls with used flourescent lights embedded in them. Then added a duct system to draw air in and pull it out the back. The idea is that its a storage building, but when I need to paint something its easy to empty it out and use it as a spray booth. It has an overhang on the front, so I can set an air compressor under it as well as a breathable air pump when needed. The air for the booth is pulled upward into the overhang and passes thru a wooded "duct" and then downdrafts thru large filters into the booth. At the rear of the booth, I used a small metal drum with a removable top and installed it so it passes thru the wall down low. When not in use, the lid keeps critters and weather out. If painting, there is an extension and a squirrel cage blower outside to draw the air/paint out. Later I added a lean to on the back to keep weather off the squirrel cage and provide room for some cleaning tanks. So while you are dreamin, you might want to think about how you can make your small buildings serve multiple purposes. These are the "out" buildings that I use in addition to the main 40x60 pole barn. This works well for me, so maybe give you some more ideas on how to put a little extra work in and be able to do multiple things with them.
A garage full of customer cars plus a few friends that stopped by. So, I have 4 of these for overflow.
I`m land locked. I run my buisness out of my garage. If I bought or rented a building to operate my buisness out of, It would cost way more than the cost of 4 storage units. They pay for themselves by having usable inventory that I need to complete customers projects.
With more space. People seem to acquire more stuff than they need. And hang onto stuff way longer than they need to. But that`s the way us humans are.
Looks very nice, but I'm confused. Is it a house with a built in garage in the rear or a garage with living quarters upstairs, or just a nice garage. The small window on the side is higher than the other windows, so that appears to be for a garage. Looks like you have a lot of lumber left over on the porch. I'd reccomend putting a roof similar to the porch roof on the side of the building. Have it extend out about 16 feet from the side and you have a cheap (?) expanded area for car parking when the shop is full. Great job though.........
Thank you! OK, it is a garage downstairs in the back, it is a 20x32 shop downstairs in the middle. Towards the front there is a dividing wall that goes all the way up, with an 8x40 balcony overlooking the 16x40 "showroom". The stairway is behind the dividing wall and has a landing with a front and back stair to it, either side of the dividing wall. The odd height window is on the landing. Upstairs has a "den", some big closets and a 40x48 party room with a 16' x 9' movie wall and A/V desk. My friends call the balcony a "museum". It houses my library and other old stuff. The wood on the porch was 2700' of shiplap and 300 2x4x8's. That, and about 150 other length 2x4's, 2x6's and miscellaneous lumber, made all of the interior rooms. Office down, closets and den up. The upstairs is "outside in". The den and closets look like old houses with windows and cedar shake roofs. The barn has 20 windows. The interior has 11 more windows and 13 doors (mostly scratch built, I got tired of building and hanging doors). I am probably about 60% there. I am at the "pull wire and insulate before the last of the interior walls go up" stage. It is 40x64x20 (w/10x40 porch), It seems like everywhere you want an outlet is 100' from the panel. There is about 60 gallons of painting left to do too. I also have a 24x32x10 barn (boats, toys and equipment), 2 car attached garage (presently the "old" shop) and a basement workshop. I have a bunch of moving to do too (lift, mill, lathe, CNC torch table and all of my tools and equipment). The den and office have electric heat and the shop has a 75000 BTU Hot Dawg propane heater. I may never get done. Oh, and I am building a car too. I haven't worked (at a job) since COVID. I went self employed. I'm busy rebuilding transmissions, carburetors, vacuum wiper motors and fabricating parts to pay for everything. Thanks again, Mike
Just finished cleaning my shop and saw this thread. Y’all crazy. I’m thankful to have an actual covered space to work but I was never good at Tetris and having to rearrange for every task costs me an extra beer or 2 every time.
It`s not the size of a garage that matters. It`s not how many tools you have. Or how many cars and parts you have. Or the amount of experience you have. It`s more about what actually gets done. Of course, while fighting the weather and physical limitations.
I think one of the biggest mistakes made when building home shops, is putting minimal electrical outlets in the walls. Wiring electical outlets is cheap and easy and having too many outlets is never a problem. When I added the lean to on the back of my shop, I put an outlet on every stud (2 ft centers about 4' off the ground. It works well as I obtain more tools and machines and rearrange things over and over. My son kidded me about it. Then he got his own shop. He bought a house with an existing 40x50 "pole barn". Its a beautiful building. Brick on the outside, shingled to match the house, drywall inside with A/C and a bathroom. Waaaay nicer than many shops. I was down there helping him one day when he said, "I wish this place had more outlets". Much harder to add them later than to overkill while building. Tripling the amount of outlets in a building probably only costs about a hundred dollars in materials.
When we built this shop many years ago, I put a fourplex on every post. That was every eight foot! And I thought I was kinda overdoing it! You got me beat, at every two feet, big time! Bones
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