Building a shop to look like a period correct shop from the 40's

OK, I'll quit for a while.

 

I’m enjoying the pictures

 

Very cool pics.

 

Here are two old ones that are still here. They are on Route 340, a few miles north of Luray Virginia. they are very near a school where one of my wife's aunts used to teach. One is being used as a flea market on the weekends. I've never seen any activity at the ex Gulf station.

 

History - Images of vintage gas stations ~ pre 65 | The H.A.M.B. (jalopyjournal.com)
Here's 60 plus more pages of old gas stations

 

The old shops I’ve been in were small, crowded, dirty and dingy places. They all had a smell of old oil , grease and gas. Most were single or at most , double bays. Saw a pic the other day of a building that looked like a house in front, then another pic of the front actually being a overhead door raised about halfway. Take some doing, but you could disguise one to look a small gas station with a single bay shop.

 

IDK, do you have to have one that is a service-gas-station style? If so, then other than post #16, bamamav covered it. Which is what I remember from most of southern MN towns.
If you can consider dealerships, you'll probably get closer to what you're wanting, size-wise. & most still had at least 1 fuel pump. There the choice is rural 1stall &/or really small shops(which could include multiple-makes + tractors), to the larger 10->15+ bay buildings. A**** other things, the "salesfloor" would make a good place to store completed projects, & of course, a nice place to "sell" them. Doesn't *have* to all on one level. The old (20's?)Ford building in Mpls mn, was ~ 5 levels, & footprint wasn't all that big. They used elevators to get in/around the bldg. Likewise did the Studebaker bros in South Bend, but that one covered multiple square city blocks & was still ~6 stories high, built in 1900's iirc? Been thru that one a couple of times. Used thru '64. A decent mid-sized Stude dealership in "Maybury" NC, still stands, but it's been converted ~4 times. Happily, it still(did) has some small outside signage proclaiming better days. I could still see the concrete work-bays floor layout. Most of the old dealership buildings in Mankato MN are down, possibly repurposed, but from what I remember, were multi-level somewhat small footprint, using a similar concept as the Mpls Ford building, which was only ~ 3-4 blocks from where I worked, & is ~ 2 blocks from the current Twins stadium. Never went thru it.
Lots of choices, hard to narrow them down... Esp since a some of dealerships were grandiose things in the 20's, died in the 30's, & reused in the 40's at a much more subsistence-level. What level of detail do you wish?
Marcus...

 

I’m not set on anything really. I just like the idea af a cool front to my shop to dress it up a bit.

 

Here's some random pics of old shops I have saved, most of them are not gas stations but neat to look at nonetheless, some of these I was saving because I was surprised by how small most of the famous builder's shops were back in the day. These guys became legends and most of them only had one overhead door. The last pic is a garage building in Potter, where my shop is, just threw that in there because it was saved in the same folder.

 

And one of the meat market about 100 years or so ago, just because.

 

I like your idea!
I have envisioned one similar to the first picture, but with a 'service bay' on each side of the gas station canopy forming a "T" shape to the overall layout.. Each service bay being about 12' wide and the canopy being about 16' wide would take up 40' in width, by 24' deep in the service bays plus about 10' depth to the pump bay would make the footprint 34' deep... a lot of real-estate for the (indoor) square footage, though. If you had access to the rear of the building, the area behind the canopy would add a third bay of very good proportion.
"If you build it, they will come."

 

How about a consent type building with a brick or cement block building on the front?

 

Ahh, I see. I got the idea that you wanted to have a shop/building look like an old place - that was big enough to house all your stuff, & actually work on it. Sorry. A Facade makes sense. Still a very neat idea, infinitely better looking than a modern bldg. .
Marcus...

 

Well done, a nice collection of pics there

 

Not exactly the look you’re calling for but it is period correct. I wanted some New England charm so I went to New England and scrounged up some architectural salvage doors. Hundreds of hours later I came up with this;

I salvaged these porcelain lampshades from a long defunct mental hospital and whipped up some fixtures;


I was shopping for junk in NYC and found a nice big stack of textured chicken wire gl***. Brought it to the gl*** shop for sizing and then glued them in. I highly recommend using this stuff it’s really cool.

 

Very cool!

 

Nows your chance to live out your dream.
https://wenatchee.craigslist.org/pts/d/wenatchee-1929-signal-gas-station-30-30/7639036657.html

 

I went to Bud Redman’s finning party on New Year’s Day a couple years in a row . His shop was a single bay filling station from the early 60’s . It had the angled out front gl*** . He had a demo company in Wichita KS . His house was surrounded with cool , interesting stuff that he had found .

 

This is the back wall mural of my garage. A work in progress. I just add to it as the spirit moves me.

 

If a guy liked puzzles.....