I installed the 30,000 btu gas heater & it works like a champ. And since the inspector had me put the guard over the gas line, the heater installed over the guard & didn’t use up much extra wall space. Mike, my plumber brother-in-law, sez I did a pretty good job on plumbing the gas line. Since it’s a “ventless” heater there’s supposed to be a vent near the ceiling & floor to allow fresh air in to prevent oxygen starvation. I am going to install a grille on the attic ladder door. And since the electric A/C / Heating unit has a setting to allow air to be blown in from outside while heating (& cooling) I am going to let it bring in the fresh air with it’s forced air fan.

My wife wanted to get rid of the old ceiling fan in our kitchen & I put in a new light fixture in it’s place. The old ceiling fan was only used for the lighting because no one liked having the fan blowing down on their food cooling hot food down too fast & warming cold food up too fast. So, being the frugal / cheap person I am, I decided to modify the light on the fan & install it in the center of my woodshop.

I’ll be continuing with the trim tomorrow & will update you-all later.

Next is a view of the rear / entrance to the woodshop. Those two 5 gallon paint containers in the corner on the right are waiting to go on the wall & ceiling. I’m painting everything white to give aid to these middle-age eyes. Notice that rope hanging from the ceiling?

That’s from the attic ladder that my son-in-law, Buck, helped me install yesterday. Buck was also the first person to help me out. When the project first started he helped tear out the old chain link fence & pull up the concreted in posts. I installed the attic ladder for a little storage space…, very little, and for access when I may need to run some electricity to a new tool or light.

Buck also helped me install the pictured heating & cooling unit. It operates properly. I say it operates “properly” because it doesn’t heat very well. It’s really made for a more southern climate where cooling is more important than heating. The heating is rated at 12,000 btu. That’s only about 3500 watts, which is a little more than twice the power of one of those little space heaters that you might put under a desk to warm your feet. Those little space heaters are rated at 1500 watts. It will be satisfactory in mild weather but I don’t want to be trying to keep up with electric bills when it is 30 degrees (F) or even 0 (F) outside. I’ve already made plans to purchase a ventless gas heater to install by that gas line in the corner. They’re not very expensive & will keep up fine. I have a “direct vent” gas heater in my garage & it ALWAYS works great. I love gas heat!!

The air conditioning portion of the unit is 18,000 btu. That will work fine for taking out the humidity on a hot August day in St.Louis. 18,000 btu cooling is capable of handling a thousand square feet & I only have just over 500 square feet.

There’s some plastering left to be done, some painting & I’m starting another portion of the project tomorrow. There will be another update coming a bit sooner than the last one.

I’m running out of warm weather so as you can see… I paid a bit extra to have the siding put on the front of the workshop, where the bricks will go, because I want to get the final inspection done as quickly as possible. I’ll put the brick veneer on this spring. There are new shutters & gutters & a light over the front window.

On the rear of the shop, the landing by the doors has been poured, there’s a light over the doors & the outside recepticle is in. My wife had to hold up the progress on the shop, again, so she could do some landscaping. She did a nice job of dressing up the entrance to my woodshop.

Here’s a close-up of one of the two lights that I chose for the outside of the woodshop. I chose “Barn Lights” to give an ole timey workshop look. I checked out other barn lights on the web, but they were kinda pricy. Especially that place that has barn lights as part of their name, although they do have some very nice lighting. This light cost about 50 bucks each delivered & they take up to a 300 watt light bulb. And they’re heavy duty construction.

It took a while but the gas company finally got the gas meter moved. The paper work took a while but the gas mechanics did a very professional job. One of my brother-in-law plumbers (I have three of them) hooked the meter back up to the gas line in the shop. The outside recepticle in the front is in too.

The building inspector had me make a guard for the gas line where it goes through the shop. And I filled the hole in the floor, where the gas meter was, with concrete.

The grass is growing pretty well where I dug up the front yard & that’s keepin’ the wife happy.

Next time I’ll give an update on the inside… including the drywalling, heating & cooling & an attic ladder

You can also see in this photo of the door that I’m making the form for the 4’X7’ stoop outside the entry door.

More to come.

The new entry doors for the shop arrived too. Nice looking doors. They’re insulated steel doors with the upper portion being thermal pane glass. They will be installed to open outward & appear to be sealed against the weather OK.

And you can see… I am keeping the wife happy by quickly working on the area of the lawn that I destroyed to get the fill dirt. That’s all the sod that I’m putting down. The rest will be seeded & covered with straw.

And then along came Ike! The hurricane that was Ike came ashore in Texas & was reduced to a Tropical Storm. If you were watching the radar on the Weather Channel, you noticed that the eye of the storm came all the way up, over & past St.Louis. Naturally the carpenters cut off the gable end off of the roof where the new shop joins up. There was a crack left open & the ceiling in both of the bedrooms on that end of the house had water leaks. The weather man said there were gusts of wind of up to 50 or 55 mph. The walls shook a bit but the wind didn’t seem to be that strong here & all we got was about 3 to 4 inches of rain in about 24 hours. There was lots of flooding around town & about 60,000 people out of power at one time or another this past weekend.

They were working Monday & Tuesday… So there’s More to Come!

My wife isn’t very happy with my kind of progress. She is obcessed with our lawn. I’ll be doing some sodding & seeding pretty soon FOR SURE!

The next photo shows how much I built up the dirt along the front of the new foundation.

I did find a pleasant suprise when I got home from work today… The trusses arrived.

I sure hope this means that they will be moving somewhat faster. They were delivered before the wall sections arrived & the driver placed the trusses on the sidewalk in front of my house… I live two doors from an elementary school & there’s baseball & soccer fields on the other side of the school. It’s a real busy street AND sidewalk. Two people have already asked my how long the sidewalk will be blocked. But it really is the only place long enough & flat enough to drop off the trusses. I think delivery of the trusses could have been timed better… Unless they’re in place tomorrow… Yeah, Right.

Right now I’m in the process of getting bids on installing the minimum amount of wiring in the new shop to meet the permit requirements. And possibly wiring for the heat pump, if the price makes it worth NOT doing that myself. I’m going to add wiring to the shop myself as I place the tools in position. This way I don’t have to pay for circuits that aren’t in a practical location for the power tools… And, of course, I can do the job myself for fewer $$$.

Let’s see if things start to move a little faster.

I’ll be bringing in some dirt to level out & to keep the drainage right around the shop.

This photo shows the “cut-out” for the double 36” doors. The doors will open outward to allow for more room in the shop. There will be a 6’ X4’ landing poured in front of the doors.

The Heating & Cooling System is on it’s way. I wanted to keep the heating & cooling system simple so I am using a window type air conditioning & heating unit. It’s a 220 volt Amana 18,000 btu heat pump type set-up. The specs say it’ll heat & cool a 1000 square foot area so it should handle a shop that’s just over half that size without running & running & running. And it should cool down or heat up the shop in a minimum of time. This will be necessary as I won’t be letting it run un-necessarly while I’m not using the shop. It will be installed into the sidewall where there aren’t any windows. I wanted to have it on hand so that when the stud wall is done I can install it before the contractor puts the siding on.

This “LumberJock” hopes to see some lumber going up soon.

Today (Monday) they poured the wall & the floor in one pour. The concrete came out nice & square & the floor is very level with one parting line through the half-way point. The men did excelent work.

After adjusting the measurements they ended up pouring the floor a bit higher than I figured & a third row of the bricks, that filled the window space, was covered.

Tomorrow they plan on tearing the forms down & this week, while the concrete cures some, they will be building the wall sections in their shop & plan on being back on site next Monday.

Meanwhile & time permitting, I will be working on removing some sod, with a gas sod cutter, from another location in our yard & use it to level the yard around the new concrete.

A little footnote to the progress: When building the forms & attaching them to the house the contractors pulled of a piece of trim that will be in the way of the stud wall & found some “old” termite damage behind the brick facade that is by the gas meter. I say old damage because several years back we found termites & had our house treated. The damage that we found had no “active” termites & we will be checking for any more damage or termites when I remove the bottom row of old siding shingles & check the rim joist.

More to Come!