Dream Shop!

[uniongoon]

garagejournal.com/forum this is a super busy site which will give tons of ideas. It will also humble those of us who think our garage is something special.

[keith2210]

thanks guys. keep those ideas coming. im taking notes. Sierra1 thats what im thinking. i want people to see this and throw ideas out there of things they would if they could put anything they want in their shop and not have to worry about a budget. wedge im from the southwestern part of indiana. about fifteen miles east of vincennes. but nine months out of the year im at purdue.

[chipsndust]

Put the doors on the gable end, not under the eves, (especially the man door) so you don't have to shovel your way in.
Use attic trusses so you have storage space above, make an access door in the gable end to the upper storage area.
Put a course or two of block on the slab before you put the wall plates down, more height, less lumber.

[daymon]

I would probably do a slab and a pre engineered metal building kit, less maintenace that way I think. Also at least 12'X12' doors, you never know what you might want to pull in there, and 14 to 16 feet sidewalls, so you will have more headroom in your loft.

[MikeD74T]

Keith, I saw an idea in Farm Show magazine that you might find interesting. Young couple starting to farm a piece of property build a large barn/shop, 50x100 with 18' sidewalls as I remember. Heat in floor with inside wood burning boiler. Pulled a 10x70 mobile home in on one side & jacked it up to the ceiling. Supported it with posts & beams to also create a 6' porch/walkway the entire length. This allowed parking underneath. Mobile home was older but in good shape inside. No more roof worries cause it never rains in the barn & easy to heat as outside temp (in barn) never gets below 40F. Seems like a really odd idea but actually quite practical. Couple figured when time & money permits building a proper house, they'll just lower the trailer & tow it away. MikeD74T

[602466]

We live in North Carolina and deal with the read clay soil. Our labs would track this all over the house when it rained. We put in a shower wash up area for the labs in the garage. Just the right shower size for them and not tracking it all over the rest of the house.

Thanks,

Wally

[Egon]

The concept is terrific! The reality is you will be so busy working there will be no time for enjoyment of the shop or the butcher shop.

The walk in cooler may be real good for holding a keg or two of beer which would be considered an evening sore muscle relaxant.

Old folks can be irritatingly realistic!

[yzbdsbp]

I love different shop ideas, thats kinda a hobby of mine is going to different peoples shops. I too use mine as a camp for me and my buddies! So here is the only peice of advice I can give you. Make it yours! but make it bigger than you think it will take, becasue as you said before you want it nicer than theirs, of course you do! But they will also want to move half of their stuff to your shop and hang out! So figure out the space you need and at a min. make it 1/4 to 1/2 bigger. TRUST ME, if you dont you will wish you did! Good luck and I cant wait to see the progress!

[flusher]

Originally Posted by keith2210

I dont want much i know but its a dream lol. Im basically looking for any input you guys have. if you could do it different what would you do and try and incorporate my things lol. You can get as detailed as you want or just comment on a certain peice. Either way i appreciate anything i can get. Im hoping for a ton of feed back so lets hear what you guys have to say. thanks in advance and sorry for the long post. I know this topic gets beat to death but im working on a dream here. thanks.

Think about your overheating lighting needs.

My 24x42 ft shop (12 ft wall height) has seven 8-ft long/4 bulb (T8 size) fluorescent fixtures-Lithonia from Home Depot.
Installed them 30 months ago. Two ballasts have failed already.

So I'm replacing these fixtures with compact fluorescent floodlights (Edison-type screw base, integral ballast, 32W power draw, 130W equivalent illumination).



I'll continue replacing those crappy Lithonia fixtures as more of the ballasts fail.

[flusher]

Check that--I meant "overhead", not overheating.