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Workshop Build

132K views 244 replies 100 participants last post by  robscastle 
#1 ·
Clearing the land

This is a blog about the building of my workshop which has been ongoing now for almost 3 years. My husband wanted a garage for car storage and working on cars and I wanted a workshop for woodworking. We decided on a 40' x 40' building with one half for him and one half for me. It was my job to sketch up a rough version of what the building would look like. The plans were drawn by both of us and an architect was needed, according to the by-laws in our township, to design the floor system only. All the building was done by us except the laying of the cement floor.



We live on 8 acres of land and chose a spot we could clear of trees and debris that was conveniently close enough to the house and the driveway. In September of 2007 my husband rented a backhoe and began clearing the spot. It was full of trees he had to remove, as well as huge boulders and a lot of tree roots and branches. Here it is cleared:



Weeping tiles were laid in the spot under where the garage would sit.



It took 20 loads of gravel to fill in the spot enough to bring it up to level.



The last photo was from Sept. 16, 2007. We waited over the winter for the snow to come and go so that it would settle enough for us to begin building in the spring of 2008.

Feb. 2008 we had a big open flat area waiting for us, but no sign of spring:



I hope to update this soon!
 
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#7 ·
rtb: Here we call it weeping tiles, but I guess it is better known as drainage pipe. The plastic perforated pipe collects water from around the foundation and takes it away. It's covered with a filter fabric to prevent dirt from clogging up the system.
 
#9 ·
Hey Julie, Gonna be sweet… you'll be kicking the old man out of the other half of the garage to expand your shop in no time …LOL :)

Btw, French drain usually refers to a pit with gravel etc where grey water is piped for drainage (like a dry well).
Weeping tile, tile drainage is what you have around your footing (Big-O), and it's always covered with clear stone to assist in drainage ;)
 
#10 ·
One more thing about weeping tile… I was told once that the origin of the term comes from before perforated plastic pipe when actual short clay pipe sections were used for the same purpose. I dug a couple hundred feet of them out of the ground on my first house. The stuff that we used to do…ha. That same house used PAPER SEWAGE PIPE doped with tar to connect the house to the septic tank as well! 30 years later guess what happened to that paper…duh ;)
 
#11 ·
Preparing the foundation

In May 2008, after a long winter and very wet early spring which delayed construction, we dug the trenches for the forms and the footings:


Forms being built, leveled and straightened:



Styrospan had to be laid under the cement foundation:



We decided to heat the whole garage and shop floor with in floor heating which would be heated with the use of an outdoor wood stove. Since our home was already using hot water heating, the house was piped and ready to be switched over from the oil fed system to the new wood stove.

Rebar was needed around the perimeter and up the middle trench. Wire mesh was put over the whole area to enable us to use it to attach the piping that would heat the floor.



View of whole site:


... to be continued…
 
#12 ·
Wow.

What a great start. What a great setting. What a great opportunity (to do it from scratch).

Two rooms in our house have radiant heating (electric mesh, in thinset, under the tile). I wish I'd done the whole house with it. What a luxury.

Have fun proceeding. I KNOW I'll have fun watching :)
 
#23 ·
Laying infloor piping

In June 2008 it was time to start getting the in-floor piping and the electricity hook-ups into the foundation before the cement could be poured.

The wood stove that will heat the new workshop as well as our house will be placed in between the two buildings. It will sit at the side of the driveway approximately 50 feet north of the house and 75 feet south of the workshop. Since our hookups will need to be at the farthest side of the house, a trench needs to be dug about 75-100 feet each way from the wood stove location. This trench will house the piping that runs the hot water as well as electric wire from the house to the shop and another wire from the house to power the stove's electrical needs.

Here you can see in the foreground is where it will go into the house and on the right where the stakes are is the spot where the wood stove will sit. In the background to the left of the tractor is where the new workshop is:


This is the piping that takes the hot water and the corregated piping that holds the wire to supply power to the shop. The smooth 5" diameter pipe is insulated and carries two 1 1/4" diameter hot water pipes inside it (one takes the hot water to the workshop and the other returns it). So from the wood stove we have to send out the insulated piping two ways, north to the shop and south to the house. This is the trench towards the workshop, partially filled in:



A view taken from the deck on our house shows the two pipes coming out of the trench that will enter the wood stove:



After all was filled in, here is the mini foundation for the wood stove to sit on with the hot water piping as well as an electrical wire from the house, coming up through the inside:


The insulated pipe had to come up through the bottom of the foundation to connect to the infloor piping, this came through at the bottom right hand corner of the shop (southeast) along with the electrical wire.

All the piping had to be laid, which we did alongside the Heatmor wood stove dealer, who connected up the system. There are six loops, three heat the garage and three heat the workshop. The piping is attached to the wire mesh grid with plastic ties.





Here is the piping coming out of the foundation area, ready for the concrete to be poured, after which point it will be connected to the manifolds, pump and control system.



Now ready to get the floor poured!

... to be continued…
 
#24 ·
right on julie

you must be excited.

After three years with originalintentions of getting an outdoor wood boiler I changed my mind and got a gas fired boiler and it arrives today.

how cool is that. I put an extra line in so that when I use myspray booth, it trips a limit switch which activates an in wall radiator so that it draws in hot air.
 
#30 ·
The pour

My husband and I did almost all the work in building the new shop but we did hire a group of men to pour and smooth the new floor.

Here's the pump truck starting the pour in the north east corner:


Pouring in the north west corner:


Close up:


Finishing up:


All done:


And the pad for the wood stove to sit on:


...to be continued…
 
#44 ·
Blocks and insulation

It was July 2008 and since our foundation was all in, we were on to the blocks and then the framing. Our plans called for one row of blocks sitting on the foundation.



Blocks were not put at the doorways at the front and side of the building and also where the large garage door would be.
This shows the front workshop door area:


2" thick styrofoam had to be placed vertically around the whole perimeter of the building. We have cold winters and this is to hopefully keep the heat in from the in-floor heating system. There is a middle dividing wall with an inner door between the garage (his) and workshop (mine) which will allow wood, tools and finished furniture to be transported through the large garage door and into the workshop.
Here you can see the side of the garage with the styrofoam in place and the opening for the side door:



This is a view of the opening for the front 16' wide garage door as well as the middle dividing wall:



Styrofoam also had to be added horizontally around the place where the deck posts would sit.



...to be continued…
 
#47 ·
Framing

Finally time to frame the walls! We used 2×6 lumber and 8' foot lengths for the studs that are 16" OC. These are placed on a 2×6 plate and with two 2×6's for the top plate. Of course this sits on top of the blocks and so it makes the wall height about 9'. We put the walls up in sections and used the top 2×6 to run across sections to hold them together. We did have anchor bolts that came up from the foundation, through the holes in the blocks and then up through the plate.

This photo shows the walls going up starting with the east wall which is for my workshop. There will be a door at the front and three windows along the side, so framing was done to leave the space for these:


On the west side, which is my husband's garage, there will be two windows and a side door. Also as stated in a previous blog posting, there is a center wall to divide the garage from the workshop and also for the soon to come trusses to sit upon:


My workshop will have an assembly room in the front that is about 10' deep x 20' wide (the width of the workshop), to divide my section up into two rooms. That dividing wall will be added later, but here is the view from my front door:


The framing was finished by the end of July 2008, including the opening for a 16' garage door:


Unfortunately, at this point, I had to have carpal tunnel surgery and was not much help to my husband for the next few months of construction, other than supervising :) It's amazing to think all the work he did on this big project while still having a full-time job. Now if we (he) can just finish before the snow flies!

...to be continued…
 
#53 ·
Floor/Ceiling Joists

In order to be able to have a 40' building without interior walls other than one right down the middle, we needed to have joists that would carry across the width of the building and give us room above for storage. Regular trusses don't allow for much empty space for storage, so we had joists designed with our particular needs taken into account.

The joists are I beam style, 40' long and sixteen inches deep. They needed to be placed 16" OC, so that meant an order of 30 plus rim board, a 1" thick 16" deep board that runs around the outside of the joists.

We rented a backhoe and used the front bucket to first move the joists as close as possible to the front of the garage and then to raise each joist up to balance on the framing.





Rim board was attached around the whole perimeter of the building, starting at the front.


Each one then had to be placed in position, first at the front so that we could start the plywood upper floor and give my husband a place to stand on to get the rest of the joists into position.

First four front joists:




The joists which were initially laid down flat, were pushed to the back to keep them out of the way of the other joists that were stood up and attached one at a time, working from the front to the back.



Plywood on first joists to make a platform:


Fun, eh?

...to be continued…
 
#58 ·
Covering the outside

It was still August 2008 and since we had rented the backhoe to help moving the joists around, we also made use of it to place our outdoor wood furnace, that will heat both the workshop and house, into position on the pad:


The backhoe was then used to lift plywood up on top of the joists:

This was used as a floor for the upstairs loft area:


It was time for aspenite to go on the outside of all the framing. It ran from about half of the blocks to the top of the ceiling/floor joists.
Here is the start of putting on the aspenite:


Here it is all finished:



The next step was to put some windows in and cover the outer aspenite with typar.
Here's the west (garage) side:



and the front:


...to be continued…
 
#64 ·
The attic

Now where were we?
Oh yes… we have to start the upper floor, I am going to call it the attic.

Let me remind you that my husband did all of this part completely on his own. I was recovering from carpal tunnel surgery and unable to carry anything or hammer or do much at all other than supervise! There were no stairs yet, so all the pieces had to be pulled up from the front or brought up on a ladder. It was a lot of heavy work for one person and a heck of a lot of pieces.

He started by making the upper front wall in two pieces:


He then made, similarly the back wall and put up a roof ridge and two 4' tall knee walls.



A view from the attic of the roof ridge and knee walls:



Rafters then had to be placed that met the ridge and were notched to be rested on the knee walls and again on the top edge of the side walls:



Here is a view of the roof rafters taken from the floor of the shop where the stairs will go:



And a view from the attic:


From the front:


And a view of the overhang:



Across the front and back, lookout rafters had to be added:


It's now Sept. 2008, can we get the roof on before the snow flies?

...to be continued…
 
#69 ·
The roof

It was Sept. 2008 at this point and the next step was putting plywood on the roof. Of course all of this plywood (to cover a garage of 40' x 40') had to be lifted up through the attic and most of it was nailed from the inside and reaching out.




We put up the garage door and got a truck load of fine gravel to keep the front area smooth and neat for the upcoming winter season.



Because I thought it was dangerous for my husband to do and we were running out of time before the cold weather struck, we hired a local roofer to put up the steel roof:





At some point during this time it was my job to make the stairs. They lead up to the attic from the back of my workshop and across the back wall. Since I am the chief photographer, somehow I didn't take shots of the making of these stairs as I went, I'm not sure why but I wish I had them. It was my first attempt and turned out really well after all my calculations. This is all I could find from that time:


The inside of the shop was hooked up with the iPex controls for the floor heating system:


…to be continued…
 
#73 ·
Insulation and wall covering

At this point, the building was up, it was winter (Nov. 2008) and time to insulate. Batts were placed in the attic walls between the studs at the end walls. Also we placed insulation between the ceiling joists, leaving an airspace at the top.



Over Christmas there was a big wind storm that knocked down some trees. This one was beside the new garage and fell away from it, most likely because some of the roots were cut while clearing the space for the foundation:

Here's a view of the east side wall of my workshop before it was insulated:

By the spring of 2009 we were back to working in the shop putting OSB on the walls. Here it is on the back wall, the garage side, and you can see through the middle wall to my workshop side:


The car is in the garage and OSB is being put on the middle dividing wall:


This is the front of my workshop, you can see the front door and window and the electrical panel in the corner:


Excuse the mess, but here's the stairs at the back of my workshop:


The area looks so big, and bright that it's exciting to see everything coming together!
...to be continued…
 
#75 ·
Starting to paint, the woodsheds built, soffit and fascia

In June of 2009, I got started on the painting on the garage side before all the OSB was up on my workshop side. I used Kilz Original and put on two coats. This was hard to do because you really have to push hard on the roller to get it in all the recesses in the OSB and my hand pain problem was not compatible with all that roller work. Anyway, I did do it, here is the back wall of the garage and the dividing wall with one coat:



I started moving my tools into the shop so I could work on some things while it was still being finished off.

At this point we stopped working on the garage and had to make wood sheds to hold the wood that would heat the garage/workshop and the house for the winter. The previous heating season we piled wood beside the outdoor furnace under tarps, which was not so much fun in -30C weather. We designed a shed for each side of the furnace that would each hold about 20 face cords.

Here's the first wall going up:

the outer frame:

the roof rafters on:

the steel roofs on and wood inside (remember we made two!):


Then in Sept. my husband put up the soffit and fascia around the outside of the garage/workshop so that no more animals or birds could get into the eaves, as we had birds nesting there in the spring:



We still haven't decided on an outside covering for the garage/workshop, and we don't have a colour picked out although we do want something to look nice with our green roof. We would like something basically maintenance free, so it may turn out to be vinyl siding.

...to be continued…
 
#76 ·
really nice set up julie..ive got a friend in michigian who has had one of those wood heaters installed . he really likes his..it burns very efficient ..you should have plenty of fire wood there…i bet the shop is working out really nice….
 
#79 ·
Front Room Painting and Casings

This spring I was finally getting the workshop painted and ready to use!

My shop is divided into a front room that will be used for assembly and finishing and the larger workshop part at the back. Here's a rough sketch of the layout:



The OSB walls have all been painted with 2 coats of Kilz original primer, here's the east side wall of the shop part before the paint:



and with the Kilz primer:



The front room with insulation only:


with the OSB:


and with one coat of primer:



I put a second coat of primer and then painted with white paint because I could still slightly see lines from the OSB through the primer:



The front window and door badly needed some casing:


First I made the window jambs, the bottom extends out and makes a sill:
(these aren't curved, it's just poor photography on my part)


The casing is pine, covered with many coats of polyurethane:


The door has a matching casing style:


It looks so much nicer this way. The side windows will have a matching casing style, but I can't finish them yet because they are not in their final position. The shop doesn't have siding on it and the side windows need to be moved out with strapping. We hope to get to that this summer.

...to be continued…
 
#89 ·
The "Man Cave"

I have been focusing on the workshop in our build, since this IS a woodworking site. But the other half of the building is for my "other half" and is his garage… also known as the "Man Cave." I thought some of you might like a glimpse of that as well.







We painted the floor with Behr 2-part epoxy, and painted the walls, the door and windows still need trim. (The right corner houses my Clear Vue Cyclone, which is not fully hooked up yet.)

...to be continued…
 
#98 ·
Making an interior window

As said in the previous post, my shop has a front room that is divided from the shop with a wall and doorway. I decided I would like an interior window between the shop and door so that I could see into the front room while in the shop, plus to allow me more natural light. While framing the wall, we used 16" OC studs but left a wider opening between the 2"x6"s where I wanted the window to be ( I believe it was about 24").

OSB was put over the wall on the shop side, but not in the front room side yet.

Here's the wall where the window will go:



I drew a line to saw on that was between the two vertical studs and horizontally where I figured the size of the window would be appropriate. The cut started with four drilled holes in the four corners:



Then I jigsawed out the opening:



... and actually made it larger in height than I originally thought I would:


On the front room side I had not yet put up the OSB so that I could nail in horizontal 2×6s exactly where the top and bottom of the hole cut was:



After this was done, I then put the OSB on the wall:



Back to the view from the shop side:



To match my window jambs and trim (from my previous blog post) I made a one piece bottom jamb with a built-in sill:



I added the side and top jambs:


... and then the window trim. I used a piece of plexi-glass for the window, held in by 1/2" x 1/2" trim on each side:



...to be continued…
 
#101 ·
The Lumber Rack

Planks on the Floor,
Planks on the Floor,
Lookin' Like a Fool
with your
Planks on the Floor…

Sorry, just had to do that…

My small collection of pine was sitting on the floor, waiting for somewhere nice to go:


This wall was the decided place, it allows me to enter the open garage door on the garage side of the workshop with a load of wood and then bring it through the middle door that divides the garage from the workshop:


I decided to use 2×4 uprights screwed to the wall, so I pre-drilled the holes for the lag screws:


I coated the uprights with two coats of shellac and then the first one went up with 4" lag screws and washers, on a 2×6 wall stud, from the floor to the ceiling:


The rest went 32" apart from the first. A few shorter uprights were put at the bottom in between the others, for shorter wood pieces:


I was using 1/2" plywood for the brackets, that were attached to the sides of 2×4s. I decided on 12 1/2" long 2×4s and the plywood would be about 14" because it goes right to the wall so that the sides of the brackets are screwed to the uprights. (This will be clearer in photos coming up) So I needed squares of plywood about 14 1/4" that I would cut at an angle that would give me two brackets from each square. This quick "jig" was made on my sliding cutoff sled:


The two pieces I get from the square of plywood will then attach to each side of the 2×4:


Pile of 26 - 2×4s cut and waiting:


Pile of 52 - plywood pieces:


Here's one bracket and you can see where the 2×4 fits into the back:


Brackets waiting to go on the wall were all coated with two coats of shellac before being attached to the uprights:


I didn't want any of the brackets to be up too high, since I wouldn't be able to reach wood up there anyway, so I just figured out heights that looked good to me. The first one at the top was put on and then the remaining ones were leveled to be the same height:


All the brackets were screwed from the sides into the uprights:


And then the wood from the floor was placed on the rack:


It really makes quite a difference to get that wood off the floor.

...to be continued…
 
#133 ·
Cleats - Getting things on the wall

Time to get supplies, especially clamps arranged and off the floor. I got my ideas from a few woodworking magazines that I have.

Here's the wall where the racks will go, in my front assembly room:



I am using the French Cleat system and will have two rows of cleats on three walls of the shop. They are attached with screws every 16", where the studs are under the OSB. My cleats are painted white, the same colour as the shop walls, that way they don't stand out:



I have a rack that is made for screwdrivers. I drilled holes along a piece of scrap maple, then cut a dado in another piece of scrap to fit this piece. It is then glued and screwed in from the back, with a cleat attached.



Since I had a magnet strip for holding chisels and assorted tools, I just screwed that strip into a maple board and attached a cleat.



I don't have a lot of clamps, but what I have always seemed to be on the floor somewhere… no more! I set my clamps on wood pieces to see how much space I would need around them. My Bessey's need more room side to side than my F clamps. The clamp racks are made on a slight angle upwards so that the clamps don't slip off:



To make the slots I just used a system similar to making box joints on a table saw, easily done:



I also decided on a pegboard rack. I had a piece of pegboard so I made the frame to match the size that I already had. The frame has a rabbet on the front face to hold the pegboard. Screws are put in around the edges:



It can hold all sorts of things with the different hooks you can buy:


Here are the racks as they currently sit, but they are easily moved around:


Today I am working on finishing up two bookcases to hold all my woodworking magazines and books. They will also go on the cleats. I will post them in a few days, when finished.

I didn't go into much detail, because cleats have been done here many times, but I will gladly give directions, sizes, etc. if anyone asks.

...to be continued…
 
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