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The new Farrington Garage/Shop build

34225 Views 89 Replies 25 Participants Last post by  Dean, 
T
Alright, this has been a long time coming! Let me try to give a quick run down of the history that leads up to this thread. Basically, my wife and I decided to get back into the car hobby in 2002 after a 15 year absence (since high school). So, while I was in Northern California doing a National Guard communication school we decided to buy our current 66 Chevelle. Well, one thing led to another and we wanted a spot to store it and some parts cars so we bought a rental house with a two car detached garage on a one acre lot less than a mile from the subdivision where we lived. In 2003ish we built (myself, Deb and the kiddos) a new 28x44' two story shop on the back of the lot and have been working out of there ever since. The only real problem with that arrangement came when we bought a house and property 30 minutes away and moved into that in 2006. A lot has happened with the rental property over the years, but all that is important is that we finally sold it on contract back in April and that is allowing us to build our shop here at our house. Whew! lots of history in a reasonably short paragraph.

OK, so this will be the build thread of building the shop. Deb and I have some building experience and will be doing most of the work ourselves with the exception of the foundation and maybe a few other things that will just save time and headaches in the long run. Obviously family and friends will be helping too as we move forward.

We're doing a build thread on pro-touring.com, chevelles.com and lateral-g.net since we have good friends on all of them.

We would love to hear your questions and comments on what you would do to make it a better shop, but remember, we are regular people with regular jobs (a couple each) and at the end of the day, we want this thing to be under roof and usable inside of our budget. Just like everything else we do, we will make improvements as we go.

Here are the basics:
40x76'
stick framed 2x6" walls 12' ceilings in the main work area
40x26 area that will be sectioned off for machine and wood shop, storage and a paint area
40x26 upstairs that will be used for storage and possible future living area
two lifts, one two post and one four post
one 16x9' overhead door and one 36" service door
electric and wood heat (A/C is part of my dream plan)

The hand drawn plans




Just breaking ground




Sam walking the dug footer
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G
Looks good Tom,now you can start building more cars..also the A/C dream make it happen. Can't hardly work in the shop when it's a 100 degrees.I put it in my transmission shop last year after 20 years and put a 5 ton unit at my home shop to cool a 2000 sq.ft area.I think it paid for itself at the trans shop in 1 year.
Are you going to LS festival this coming weekend?

Greg Cullum
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Derek69SS
I'd strongly recommend making the overhead door 18' rather than 16' if it's not too late.

18' allows you to drive straight in. 16' requires you to park at angles to get the cars far enough away from each other to open doors.

My doors are all 16' and I hate them. :eek:
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greg5436 said:
Looks good Tom,now you can start building more cars..also the A/C dream make it happen. Can't hardly work in the shop when it's a 100 degrees.I put it in my transmission shop last year after 20 years and put a 5 ton unit at my home shop to cool a 2000 sq.ft area.I think it paid for itself at the trans shop in 1 year.
Are you going to LS festival this coming weekend?

Greg Cullum
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Hey Greg,
Thanks for the a/c advice.
We are heading to LS fest this weekend. Most likely will be heading down to Bowling Green Thursday late afternoon.
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Here's what was going on when Deb, Sam and I were thrashing on the cars at the Ohio Musclecar Challenge.



Lots of pea gravel fill while I was out of town last week.





And this brings us up to date. I should be meeting with the flat work guy today and if all goes well, we will be pouring tomorrow. Having been in the building industry for a while, I won't be surprised if that gets bumped to the right a little.

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Derek69SS
Looking good!

Are you putting in a floor drain?
What about plumbing? I really wish I had a bathroom in my big shop. My small garage has one, but all the parties are in the big one. :)
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Derek69SS said:
Looking good!

Are you putting in a floor drain?
What about plumbing? I really wish I had a bathroom in my big shop. My small garage has one, but all the parties are in the big one. :)
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We have a floor drain in place for the painting area that is opposite the machine area. Note that I said painting area, not booth. I'm not trying to lead anyone to believe I have any painting skills. We did put in a rough in for a connection to a future septic system and also roughed in for a water line. Down the road for sure. Right now being able to walk up to the house (or woods) will be much easier than the running to the gas station that we are used to. I can probably gain two hours of work out of Deb everyday not making that trip!
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T
Just as promised, the flat work guy came out and checked the grade of the pea gravel and spread the visqueen. They will be back at 6 am and start pouring at 7:30. Pretty exciting!

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1965_ss
Lucky dog!! I can't wait to see this build:thumbsup:

I would go with at least a 10' tall door on the front of that!

Mine has a 17' wide x 9' tall roll up and it's nice to have the added height.
I have a 6" stem wall and then 10' walls with a fully vaulted ceiling just to give you an idea. If I went with 12' walls I would have gone with a 10' tall roll up.
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Tom - It was good talking to you yesterday. The funny thing with shops is that no matter how big you build it, after it's built, you'll always wish that you had built it bigger, :) At 40 X 76, I can't imagine that to be the case, but you guys have a lot of Chevelles. I'm sure it'll be up to Farrington standards like everything else you guys do, so we look forward to he progress reports.
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T
No surprise, I fell behind on updating pictures.

Just as promised the pouring started early on the morning of 9-04.


Here's the less than cautious clown that drove too close to the foundation and broke out some of the blocks. A few years ago I may have lost my cool, but in the end it would have solved nothing. The flat work guy came up with a solution for the repair and we agreed it was the best option.


Concrete poured and relief cuts done by the end of the day. Also had the engineered floor joists delivered for the floor and also the rafters for the same area.


Here are a couple of pictures that give a better perspective of the grade we had to deal with.



Our trip to LS Fest was cut short mid day on Friday due to my part time job. Once that obligation was met we took advantage of the situation to pick up lumber and start to lay walls out.


Hopefully more updates tonight!
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My framing skills are a little rusty, we had off and on showers until about 2 and my whole family dropped by (I'll never complain about that) so we didn't get as much done as we had hoped, but any progress is good progress!

Sam taking a break to sweep off the water while Deb talks to my dad. Oh yeah, first wall up!!!


Dark enough to call it a night.
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1965_ss
tommycomfort said:
So, while I was in Northern California doing a National Guard communication school we decided to buy our current 66 Chevelle.
Click to expand...
If your ever out here again, let me know. I can meet up with you:thumbsup:
Progress looks great!!
What size door are you ending up with?
How many lifts are going to be in that shop:D
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T
I always think we should be making more progress than we do, but a couple of jobs, two cars to maintain and a buddies to work on and there are still only 24 hours in a day just limits us...

Deb and Sam getting it done. Don't bother with your safety comments on our work crew, I can't control everything! We're doing well with safety glasses, but Deb in flip flops is beyond my control.


Progress at the end of the day yesterday.



Clueless dogs found this to be the coolest piece of concrete because it had been shaded all day. They don't seem to mind the sawdust landing on them.
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i have a 40 x100 workshop in upstate NY. Cold winters and lately humid, hot summers. it is a pole building type construction, fully insulated with 10' high ceilings in 68' and 14' high ceilings in the remainder 32'. fabral steel exterior and finished inside with fabral white liner. it was 95 degrees out yesterday with 100% humidity. my inside shop temp was 70 degrees. i do not have air conditioning, i do run a dehumidifier year round to keep it dry inside. i would hold off on the cost of air conditioning until proven necessary. i keep the shop closed up on hot days, and open doors on comfortable days to allow air exchange. just my thoughts....
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R
Looks real good Tom. Did you guys build your house also?
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rsgthelmick said:
Looks real good Tom. Did you guys build your house also?
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Hi Randy,
We didn't build the current house, but completely remodeled it from a dilapidated A-frame with no porch to what it is today. I should mention that the interior work is still not done on that project...
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Somehow I keep thinking that I am doing pretty good with updates, but apparently I fell behind again. Work has been demanding but we're still making pretty decent progress. All our car projects need attention, but the buyer of our former shop indicated that he will soon have the remainder of the money and want it sooner than later so it's thrash time to get this place under roof.


We left Goodguys Indy early on Sunday so we could get home and get some work done. The last of the wall construction was building the two 4' walls on each side of the garage door and install the header. We used our John Deere to lift the header to 8' (max lift of the bucket) while Sam and I lifted each end the remaining foot. All was well until we shoved the last side in. Even though I had never done it before, I used construction adhesive in the pockets and that made things very slippery. Well... As we were shoving the second side in, the first side slid out and bounced out of the tractor bucket and smashed the hood of the poor John Deere. Also glanced off Sam's head, but he's fine. After we all settled down we were able to install it with a few more safety measures in place.

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Floor is complete upstairs and trusses have been delivered for the open area.



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Rained all day, but Deb, Sam and I were able to get the stairs completed today. Normally we build stairs at the completion of a project, but I figured with all the work that needs to be done upstairs this would save us time in the long run. The guy I worked for framing houses many years ago never taught me to build stairs, but I watched him more times than I can count and luckily I picked up a few things.





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