A few folks over on the Excursion forum wanted a tour, so I figured I'd post this build thread. Pardon my verbosity, skip to the pictures if 5 minutes of reading is too much.

I've been retired (ATC) for a few years and always figured to move south for better winters. After some thought, ended up staying right where we are, and do some snowbirding. I've lived on this property since 1985 and appreciate some of the advantages here. House is now too big, but we love the property and the immediate area. Knock on wood, very low crime, low cost of living, minimal neighbors and those I have are pretty nice folks.

A nice shop was always part of the bargain whenever I thought above moving. Wanted someplace to park an RV inside, space for a lift because I am REALLY tired of working on stuff in the driveway or the cold dark house garage. I don't do a ton of work and mods like many of you do, more of a dabbler. In my early years, I was an airplane mechanic, so that's just a fancy way of saying jack of all trades, master of none. Same can be said for my construction skills, I've done a little here and a little there.

First thought was 26X40, two bays. 40 deep to hold whatever RV. That idea didn't get too far when I added up my wants, so the napkin I was designing on grew to a paper towel. 36X40 three bays. Ehh, 36 is a bit narrow for three bays, better go 40X40. 2 trucks parked nose to tail and I need space for workbenches, better go 44 deep. As you can imagine, this exercise could keep on going, but alas my budget did not. 40X44 it is. I wanted 12' doors for the RV, so that ended up with 12' walls on a short stem wall.

I found an Amish guy locally to give me a price on having it built, and that price said I am building it myself if I am going to get what I want. So the die was set to turn these woods into a garage. I absolutely couldn't have done it without my wife and a few GOOD friends to spend many long days turning this patch of woods......




Into this!

 

I mentioned jack of all trades, but that's not quite correct. I have zero knowledge of concrete aside from it looks like way too much work for me!

Called a few local contractors for some bids. I figured 12-15K off the top of my ignorant head. Sadly, I was off by a bit. 2 came in at 23K, one was 18K with a LOT of vagueness and one bid of "we don't want to do it, how about 36K". Went with the medium sized company right down the road. 40X44 with 42" footer, 2' stem wall and 5" of 4000 PSI concrete with fiber, along with a fair amount of site prep and fill. Once they showed up and got to work, I realized why it was priced where it was, they did a LOT!

But first, we had some clearing to do. A lot of the area had these nasty shrubs and vines and thorns. This was the "ball eating" bush when we had a batting cage set up for the kids in this area. It put up a fight!




Then some trees to cut down and more shrubs and vines. Took the wife and I a month of working off and on to get it cleared.

 

Much to my surprise, the concrete guys called and wanted to start work a week early! 6:45 AM on the Tuesday before Memorial day, they showed up with some heavy equipment and went to work. Made short work of the stumps and scraped the topsoil off down to the clay about a foot down. The back half needed about 3' of fill to bring it up to grade. The site is about the highest spot on my property, so short of a 1000 year flood, I should be high and dry.
















A view from the house, about 200 feet away.

 

They were using clay for fill and compacting the crap out of it along the way. They brought dozens of truckloads of the stuff, they'd spread a load out and run the compactor over it. It was a serious machine, the wheel is about 5' tall and it really thumps the ground if you are standing within 20' of it.



Before long they were digging the trenches for the footer and I was shocked to have concrete trucks pulling in by mid afternoon. He was digging the trench while the trucks were pouring and always managed to stay just far enough ahead to not be in the way. I guess they've done this before.





















At the end of day one, we had footers all the way around.

 

They were back first thing in the morning the next day for more dirt moving and building forms for the stem walls.


Our house in the background.









The dog inspector!




More forms.




My old pole barn in the background.

 

Once again, they were pouring more concrete in the early afternoon.

 

Day 3 was stripping the forms and prepping for pouring the floor. Also did the driveway area in front of the garage, stripped down to clay, filled and compacted with recycled concrete and eventually gravel top coat.

 

Friday they are back for the floor. They hand troweled the whole thing and I will say they managed the promised "smooth as a babies bottom". The dog was never fazed by any of this activity. Most of the day she spent staring into the woods stalking a mouse or something while these huge trucks are rolling in and out.

 

They were done with the whole job by 5 PM, including all the driveway work and fixed the driveway out to the road where the concrete trucks had trashed the old existing driveway.

So the end of the day I had this and a bit of apprehension that I was now up to bat! The next contractor to work on the project was the gutter guy.

 

I'll get back to this tomorrow.......

 

Awesome looking shop!
I'm sitting in my inferior 25' x 25' man cave/shop I built in one side of a small machine shed and as for how much concrete I have poured (cattle lot floors) hiring the concrete was a a good decision, I put way more time and WAY more work into the floor of the shop to get it perfect than the rest of the project.

Hope you share some more on the shop build, I'm intrigued!

 

when i did mine the only thing i subbed out was the concrete work also.

 

I'm really happy with the concrete except for one mistake they made. Floor is supposed to be flat in the back 2/3, then a gentle slope in the front 1/3. Somehow they misplaced a couple pins in the back left and there is a bit of a shallow lake over there, water pooled about 3/4 of an inch when it was open to the elements. I don't think it will be a problem going forward and I sure can't tell it's off just walking on it. Otherwise, it was excellent. Walls are exactly 40X44 within less than 1/16" and were perfectly level. So far so good after 8 months.

 

Earlier I mentioned designing this on a napkin. I can't recommend this for the feint of heart, but I never wrote any exact plans down on paper other than a few tally sheets for materials I counted in my head. It is just a garage and the construction is pretty straight forward stuff. Not an engineer, but I am a good monkey and copied well what I have seen elsewhere. I will admit the lack of blueprints caused a few ooopsies here and there, but as I always said while building it, "the finish carpenter will fix that".

Since the concrete guys were early, I was naturally not quite ready to start building the day they left. Yes, I always wrote my term papers the day before they were due! Came up with a materials list and sent it off to Lowes, Home Depot, Menards, Carter lumber, and 84 lumber. The local Carter has (had I should say, the place burned down in December) a couple grumpy old farts running that store, always had the impression they couldn't be bothered with you unless you were one of their good ol boy network contractors. The price was 1/3 too high. 84 lumber sent the list to some counter dufuss and it came back all wrong and overpriced as well. My experience with the big box stores is it all depends on who you are lucky enough to deal with there. The Home Depot guy actually called me and asked some reasonable questions, only problem was he took over a week to send me back a price. Every time I've been in that particular store, the pro desk was either not staffed or under staffed. So down to Menards and Lowes. Prices came back very close, but the guy at the Lowes pro services desk was very helpful (and continued to be very helpful throughout), they got my business.

So a few days later, the truck from Lowes showed up and dropped off a huge pile of lumber. Almost 300 2X6's of various lengths (mostly 12 footers), 12 6X6X16 posts for the overhangs, 150 sheets of OSB, and a fair handful of various other bits and pieces. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the lumber. Out of all that I took back about 20 2X6's that were more suited to boat building. I know I had pictures of the pile to start, but sadly I seem to have not saved them in the right place. Eh, you'll get the idea with the wall building pics I do have.

First job was to build some tables to build walls on and will double as workbenches when it's done. Then built a bunch of walls.

 

Somewhere along the line, my last lil one graduated from HS. My wife's "mini-me"!