The walls were prefabricated which really helped put it together quickly. As you can see I raised the height of the walls by 2 and a half feet. I wanted to have a little loft space and as the walls originally were only 7 foot, it felt a little too claustrophobic for me to feel happy to work in.

My son and his mate were drafted in to service. The sides were very heavy, at 20ft by 9.5ft there was a lot of lumber to haul about.

I drafted in a couple of extra helpers but one of them, Roy, was too busy looking good to help much, still it was nice to see him. I know it looks a little tacky, but the old membrane was going to be replaced, so I was not too worried. And I was working to a budget after all.

With the sides up the roof went together fast. My son is a professional Roofer, and going from fitting the trusses to the membrane only took about an hour. Fixing the steel sheeting for the roof took a little longer, but it only took a weekend and it was up, locked down and very stable.

The following weekend was spent filling in the missing cladding. I moved the double doors down and made a new set of windows above. You can never have enough natural light.

Next time I’ll cover the Insulation, internal cladding

A few dinners out with the wife, plus the promise of unlimited furnture, to her exacting (well I can at least promise) requirements, and I had the budget $6,000 (£3,000) to include everything Building, Tools & Setup costs.

I negociated with a local farmer for permission to have my Workroom next to some stables, my own land being too small.

The land was a little damp

After waiting for the land to dry out, I got my son and a couple of his friends to start the fun task of clearing the site, at least I told them it would be fun.

I needed about 40’ by 20’ cleared as I had planned on a 20’ by 12’ Workshop, plus some parking

Claering the site

Then came the less fun task of building the base.

The land was so soft that that in places we could push 6’ garden fence posts into the ground with our bare hands, so deeeeeep foundations were needed.

Time for the younger (and cheaper) generation to take to the fore again.

Building the foundations

It was hard work and and a LOT more expensive that I had originally expected, but working on the principal that the hardest part of any build is getting it above ground, I kept positive (most of the time).

Next time I’ll get to the maiin build, Thanks for letting me share this with you