My Dream Shop Build

[2004mach1]

Where to start...
Well my father has a 40x40 shop that we have FILLED. its super hard to move around with all the crap in there. then we added some outbuildings for extra storage.
my house had a 1.5 car garage attached and a detached 1.5 car that i had a hoist in.

well everytime i was at my house, the shop had the tools i would need and visa versa.

its been rather annoying for 4 years this way, and we have always had a dream of living on some land and having 1 shop.

Well 2020 started off by my wife finding out we are expecting 2 twin boys, and we already have a 2 yr old little guy, which meant our house wasnt big enough.

so amidst this COVID crap, we decided we had better strike while the iron was hot in the housing market ( not knowing what the future holds ) and we sold our house April 3 2020.

Luckily for us we found a place with 50 acres and a 4000sq ft house with a 2 car garage. so we jumped and moved in shortly after.

now we are living out of boxes and life is crazy but working from home during this time has some perks.

so we started to break ground on the shop area.






once we had the field area stripped 25 ft extra on each side ( so we can drive around the building as needed it was time to try and bring the land up. ( its 4 ft lower than the house garage floor )

i was able to secure 200 loads of brown clay to bring up the land 24 inches.






as you can see the pad once cut down to clay it was lower than the field. we dug a hole in the back corner and were pumping everyday to try and keep the slab as dry / firm as possible.
( THIS SUPER SUCKED )

but once we got the clay covering the pad we decided that driving between the trees to the door was not ideal ( always ) so we scored 12 truck loads of cement blocks and bricks, so 500 bucks later we were able to make a dedicated shop driveway.


the stuff here in the pics is about 2ft thick so it should make a good base for a driveway later in life.

while the dozer was here we thought it was a good idea to drop the 0-2 inch stone down that will be the base on the ground ( to be topped with 0-7/8 ) prior to the cement floor going down.
but the clay under it hasnt had enough time to settle yet and some clay started to "pump" up.
so we are on hold for a little bit before i want to forge ahead with the foundation wall, and floor to go in.
we have it rough graded right now with 0-2" stone which is where we will let it sit for 4 weeks when we will finish grade the 0-2 and dig the foundation wall trench to continue.


here is the shop itself. it is 50x100 16ft tall. as you can see it has 2 16widex14 tall doors and i had them add frame work for a third door just incase i want to add one later.

i plan to cut the shop in half so it will have a working side and a cold storage side.

now like i said we are on a 4 week hold to allow the clay and stone to air out before we dump the 0-7/8 stone and get ready for the floor and foundation.

the building itself is on hold right now due to the virus going around so there is no need to rush and mess up the floor etc.

i will keep this updated as we move forward but dont be alarmed if its a little slower than all of us would like.

 

[mysteed]

Congrats on the new house. The shop is gonna be HUGE!

 

[DAVESVT2000]

That’s awesome, nice future shop.

what’s amazing is how quickly you’ll still fill it. But at least everything will be in one place.

my house came with an old shop, 40 x 100, but no height, only a 10 foot ceiling.

the shop for my work is newer, built in 2004, it’s 50x60 with 14 foot ceilings.

any plans for a loft above, a mantown place to hang out with a flatscreen, small fridge, pool table, overlooking the garage and the toys ?

 

[CobraBob]

Great time to do what you did! Congrats! Keep us posted as the shop progresses.

 

[2004mach1]

That’s awesome, nice future shop.

what’s amazing is how quickly you’ll still fill it. But at least everything will be in one place.

my house came with an old shop, 40 x 100, but no height, only a 10 foot ceiling.

the shop for my work is newer, built in 2004, it’s 50x60 with 14 foot ceilings.

any plans for a loft above, a mantown place to hang out with a flatscreen, small fridge, pool table, overlooking the garage and the toys ?

ive been considering a small chunk up ontop the welding area and machining area i could do this. but havent committed to it as of yet. ill have to see how it all goes and if i feel like i will use it as much as i would if it were storage.

 

[TerminatoRS]

I read through everything, but still can't get over the 4000sq ft house! Holy balls! That's enormous where I come from. ha

 

[2004mach1]

I read through everything, but still can't get over the 4000sq ft house! Holy balls! That's enormous where I come from. ha

its big here aswell.

the people prior had built the home about 25 years ago with their son in mind who is in a wheelchair. there are absolutely no bumps, steps , transitions throughout. so the house is nice with no steps etc. hoping we can grow old here.

there is an unfinished basement but they had just used it for storage which is our plan for now.

 

[CobraBob]

Your 4,000 sq. ft. house with 50 acres of land, plus a huge shop, plus no steps anywhere except to the basement is definitely a home you can retire in and grow old. Plenty of space, inside and outside, for the 3 kids, too!

 

[Buddy17]

200 loads of clay hauled in??? Holy crap how much did you pay per triaxle? That would be like 40k around here!

 

[2004mach1]

200 loads of clay hauled in??? Holy crap how much did you pay per triaxle? That would be like 40k around here!

it would be the same around here...

BUT

i caught a company that was digging a 1 acre x 50 ft deep pond... and they had to get rid of that dirt...

i gave them a free dumping site IF they dozed it smooth.

so they brought it all in.


they were going to take the dozer so i ordered the 0-2 stone and made the deal that paying cash meant the dozer would rough grade for me.

now 2 days later they wanted to take the dozer again... and while we were chatting a little he got a call. he has 200 loads of black dirt with a little clay mixed in... i said bring it all...

so they are back 1 truck every 60 seconds dumping and smoothing that with the dozer. the owner of the company wanted me to pay half price ( 150 a load ) but i said well... i will have taken 400 loads at this point. you can bring it all IF its free.. if not take the dozer... and well i guess ill be making a bunch of berms and sculpting the lawn!! lmfao

so i was just out there marking out a couple berms, and a dump site where we can stockpile the dirt until summer when the field is SUPER SUPER hard and we can truck it around the property.


this is a ms paint thing... but maybe it will make sense.

the front yard grass is mostly the septic system so we cant truck across it to the low laying area on the bottom side of the pic. best thing i can do with how wet it all is now, is to dump it into a pile behind the new shop build and we can truck it the 3-400 ft over to the other side of the house later.

for the savings i will put up with it being half ugly for a bit. lol

 

[Buddy17]

Wow, you really lucked out on the dirt. I sort of lucked out in the same way when the utility company i work for was doing a large excavation to bore a new gas line. They needed a place to dump the dirt and it was only about a mile from my house. Nice easy and free way to fill in a really deep pond that the previous owner of our home had built to apparently raise catfish in lol.

 

[als97cobra]

That's awesome. Just a larger version of mine. I have 20 acres, mostly corn as well, but have an attached garage for the wife, detached shop that is big enough for 3 cars and tall enough for a lift. Then have a 40x40 barn. It's not full like your dads is, but getting there! I have a center post in ground hoist in the barn, but want to install a 2 or 4 post in the shop.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

 

[2004mach1]

no HUGE updates...

we ended up putting 12 inches of 0-2" reclaimed stone down over the shop driveway. I couldnt believe how quick it "tightened up" prior to this the dump trucks would back up on the broken bricks / blocks and it would shift, move alot.
as soon as they dumped the first load they were able to back down the driveway fully loaded and it doesnt budge at all.




once the driveway was done we brought in another 55 loads of clay and just made a large pile that we can pull from later this summer ( once the building is up ) and we can use to bring up the opposite side of the house which is about 4ft low and is generally wet so cutting the grass has been a pain.



we are going to do final grading on the 0-2 stone where the shop will sit this weekend. I have rented the bobcat for an extra day to clean up the berm at the front ( going to plant trees ontop to block some of the shop from the road )

and we put all of the topsoil from the new driveway between the trees up the driveway so i need to work that area a bit to clean it up aswell.

this past weekend i redug about 600ft of ditchline to get it to drain properly. Also scored some 15" culvert pipes that we will be able to jump the ditch over to the other 25 acres of the property ALOT easier then we currently can.
i plan to put 1 at the rear of the grass and 1 at the front ( both about 15ft long ) so we can cross with lawn mowers, dirtbikes, atv, trucks if needed.

i also hired out some brush removal. the front part of the second 25 acres is VERY low compared to the house/farm area of the property. it drops off about 15-20ft and that area floods when the rain comes in heavy.
so we cannot really "use" this portion of the property BUT with a ton of brush and small trees up that bank not only does it look like S**T but its a great place for mice, raccoons, snakes etc to hang out, which isnt ideal.
so we had the guy here last night and spoke about the scope of work. he says he will have it all cleared ( leaving any good sized trees, but clearing the small stuff ) so we can drop some clay down the bank making it to where i can mow the slope in the future.



thats all the updates we have for now.
this weekend we are going to final grade, and tidy up the yard a bit.
the following weekend we are digging the trench for the foundation!

time to get this sucker up!!!