Building a Shop: Week 8

With the frozen nights, climbing on the metal roof has become a more dumb idea each day. I took a few moments of sunshine (although it was only 20 degrees) to climb up there to try and finish the roof. I had to change my pants after a couple slips before I realized my roof-climbing season was over. I was able to get all the metal roofing on except the top ridgejust not all screwed down. With snow in the forecast, my father in law, Stuart, helped me nearly complete all the metal-trimwork on Wednesday. With the 20-foot ladders fully extended, standing on ice, we came up with an idea of basically screwing 22 feet of top-ridge together, walking it up the ladder and then carefully laying it on the roof ridge, putting in 2 screws on one end and then hoping it stays there until April. With the snow starting to really come down, our plan worked like a charm. Now we just have to wait until April to see if it was a good idea. The good news was that it ended up snowing several inches and then froze. All the weight of the frozen snow is basically holding down the top ridge. It was a Christmas miracle to finish the last few pieces as the snow starting to fall. I suspect well have snow on the ground until Spring, so it couldn't have been better timing.

All that is left is installing the garage doors. Projects that I can complete inside the building, protected from the elements.

Again, a big thanks to Stuart and my other friends. There is now way I could have finished this mammoth-sized project without you.

Creation of a Shop: Week 5

Raise the roof! In five days the shop has gone from posts to framed up.

Most of the framing was done this week. It's actually looking like a building now. We had a roof raising party with a few friends (Thanks Stu, Scott and Brian) when we raised and placed the trusses.

For the most part it's gone smothly since I placed the posts. Surprisingly, the buiding is actually level and square (plus or minus an inch), which I'm sure makes my Dad happy. After another few days of work, I'll be working on the roof and then the metal shell.

We raised the trusses with a couple cable jacks that sat on the posts.

Creation of a Shop: Week 4

Let there be height!!
With manly help of some good friends and family (the best home teachers and father-in-law in the world), we were able to set the gigantic posts. The posts were either 6"X6" or 6"X8" and 20 feet long, thus not easily moved. But with much effort and some rebar to set the braces in the rocky soil, we placed all 13 posts where they needed to be and made them sit straight.
To avoid having to fill the huge holes entirely with concrete, I created a few poor-man forms around the posts. They worked out great for when Mr. Concrete man brought his truck to fill up the holes. The crappy forms are all now covered with concrete so Mr. Inspector can't see the against-code forms.
With all the posts set in place, I was able to remove the braces and bring in some gravel around the site to flatten out the ground inside and around the shop.
It looks great! If I'm not mistaken, it even looks like a shop...kind of?

Creation of a Shop: Week 2

With no more jobs to hire out, the rest is up to me and my trusty Kubota tractor to finish the pad for the shop. Code requires that each post hole (our shop has 12 of them) be 32 inches wide and 36 inches deep. For most people, these holes can be dug by simply renting an auger for a few hours, but not for those of us Bible believers who have built our houses on a rock...literally. I was able to use my little back-hoe to dig 10 of the the 12 holes. Unfortunately my ability to dig has a couple down sides. 1) I keep digging the holes too wide, which means I'll have to buy more concrete at $115 cubic yard to fill them. 2) Even my powerful mini-tractor can't dig through solid rock. 3) Someone put the phone line where I needed to dig....three times.

Yes, I listen to AM radio every day. Yes, every other commercial on AM radio says, "call before you dig!". Yes, I dug before I called. Yes, I dug up our phone line. Yes, three times.

The good news was that I received a lesson on phone lines from our good friend Tana. (Thanks Tana, you rock!") After Phone Line 101, I was able to splice the broken line to give us phone and Internet service until Quest came out and put in a new line. For wire, all I had was speaker wire, and it worked like a charm. One note for you future phone service workers out there, the phone wire has a metal sheath around it that is very, very sharp. I've got about a dozen cuts on my fingers to prove it. I dug a trench the entire length of the shop for the phone company to lay down a new line that wouldn't travel under the shop and they came out a few days later and repaired the wire correctly, though the Quest guy was impressed with my speaker-wire fix. Thank you very much.

For the two remaining two holes that were solid rock, I rented a jack-hammer to dig down through the rock. After two full days and a bottle of Ibuprofen, I had dug each hole about 30 inches down. I was six inches too shallow, but I was hitting rock that wouldn't break up, so I gave up.

The county inspector came out at the end of the week and spent a whole 3 minutes glancing at the holes (even the shallow ones) and signed me off to start building. All the lumbar was delivered soon after. Next week...setting the posts...stay tuned for more pics of a ruggedly handsome me.

Creation of a shop: Week 1

Every man needs a shop, right? After months of dreaming, I actually started moving ground to put in a big shop for our crap this week. It's been a process just to get to this point. First, I bought a ton of toys over the years, then I parked them all in the driveway and told Monica that I need somewhere to put all said toys. My plan worked perfectly.


I got a permit, researched some shops and went with the cheapest building I could build myself. It's called a pole barn. Basically it consists of huge poles with metal siding. Doesn't sound too hard, does it?
The week started by tearing down an existing car port and cutting down a few trees. I really enjoy tearing down stuff.

My life as a lumberjack got off to a bad start. It wasn't exactly as climantic as I had hoped. But we got it done.

Of course nothing is easy in my life and I was reminded of this little fact when I started digging out the side of the hill to create a level pad. You see, I live on a rock. That little biblical story about the man who built his house on a rock sounds good when it rains, but if the man wants to build a shop, he's screwed. They seem to have left that part out.






To tackle the rock-problem we hired a back-hoe guy to use a huge jack hammer and cut into the hill side. $1,000 later, we also needed to remove two 50 ft pine trees. Though, I had offers from friends to cut down the trees on our own, I just couldn't stomach the site of a tree falling on to my house. So we hired a professional. And it took all of about 20 minutes for the man of all men to climb, cut-down, and cut up two huge trees. I felt like a teenage girl watching this guy swing his chainsaw around like it was toy. Why didn't I become a lumberjack? Maybe it had something to do with my max chest press of 90 lbs. Anyway it was cool to watch.
I have been able to put my Kubota to the test though. She's working hard and holding her own. She may not be the biggest tractor, but she has tries hard and looks great in leather pants...sound familiar?