Happy Gilmore
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- Southeastern, MA
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- Ford 5610 Ford 4630 Ford 3930 MFWD w/ 7310 loader Ford 3930 Kubota BX1500 Kubota RTV 900XT Kubota F2680E 72"RD Ford 4610 Kubota KX121-3
Thanks
Backyard Shed for BX Tractor
- Thread starter bboshart
- Start date
Thanks
AStanton
Platinum Member
Wrooster,
Your building is a work of art and craftsmanship. I noticed the 2x10 headers over the window on the non-loading gable wall. That is over-kill and the way things should be built! I have a question, Is the stone work on the foundation and apron, stamped concrete or veneer?
Your building is a work of art and craftsmanship. I noticed the 2x10 headers over the window on the non-loading gable wall. That is over-kill and the way things should be built! I have a question, Is the stone work on the foundation and apron, stamped concrete or veneer?
JOHNTHOMAS
Super Member
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- Apr 14, 2008
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- 7,724
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- Somerset, Ky
- Tractor
- F2690 4WD RTV X1140 MX5400 HST ZD1211
I had a 24' x 48' metal building built for me last month which uses the pole barn method of posts dug in the ground with framing and then metal added. Wife, me and neighbors think it looks good. Gravel floor and can add wood, concrete or combination of both later and probably will.
Rustyferrious
Silver Member
Nice neat building. Mind sharing what it cost? Any photos of the construction process?
check
Elite Member
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- Sep 26, 2008
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- 4,002
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- 2009 Kubota BX25
And your tractor looks very happy in there!
The patio/apron surface is PA bluestone puzzled on (tiled) over flatwork. Prep the area normally (flat, vibrator-compacted, 3/4" clean base). Pour the slab but leave it rough, and don't forget to account for the thickness of the bluestone -- which can vary from piece to piece. By rough, I mean just screed the surface to reasonably level, rake the mud a bit, and let it set without troweling/floating it. Take care with the prep and slab layout to provide a bit of pitch away from the structure, just as you would do with any garage work.
Once the slab cures for a day you can begin to set the stone on it. I don't want to tell you this is the easy part -- it's not. Puzzling the pieces together and then mortaring them in place is time-consuming, heavy work. Some of those 1.5" thick pieces of flagstone can weigh 75 pounds. Lay out the stones and then mix and match in an effort to both minimize and make uniform the grout joints (gaps between the stones). Then mortar the stones in place, using a screed or similar board to set the height against a reference string. You will need to make some effort to prevent any sort of "lippage", where one stone is significantly higher (proud) compared to an adjacent stone -- you really want to avoid this as it is a tripping hazard. Once the mortar sets you can go back around and grout the joints. I would suggest adding a hint of tint to the grout, as it prevents the result from looking like a DOT project and makes for a better blend with the surrounding stone. For a large area you may need to make a relief cut or two (using a diamond blade masonry saw) once everything is set. Backfill the relief with Sikaflex or equivalent.
Notes:
1) A decent apron surface outside the shop is inherently useful as your work can expand onto it. It basically increases the size of the shed in nice weather. Plus, you don't end up tracking mud into the shed. You can also run a narrow slab on one side of the structure ("sidewalk"), which makes a great place to store tractor implements, fuel cans, and so on.
2) The effort involved with puzzling irregular pieces of stone is inversely proportional to the grout joint width. With geometric stone, you can make 1/4" wide joints no problem. But with irregular stone, making narrow joints is VERY expensive, and involves a lot of manual labor, a lot of diamond blades, and a lot of harmful stone dust. I took the more expensive approach on our driveway apron, which has an a higher aesthetic factor than the shop patio/apron surface.
3) Put conduit, more than you think you need, under any slab surface. Ten foot lengths of conduit are 3 or 4 dollars. Cursing because you can't get wire somewhere you want it is much more expensive.
4) Sort out the drainage situation BEFORE you start in on the project. Water is the enemy of everything man-made. Divert it, manage it, get rid of it. Standing in mud while you are working on your equipment really sucks.
wrooster
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JOHNTHOMAS
Super Member
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- Somerset, Ky
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- F2690 4WD RTV X1140 MX5400 HST ZD1211
Not sure you were asking about my building but if you were I had it built by some Mennonites. There were 3 to five that showed up for two very short days and one long day. I provided the 36" front door and they provided all other materials. $8300 with a 9' high roll up door instead of 7' and 10' ceilings and a bit extra for the best primed painted metal with the extended warranty. They showed up first evening with mini walk behind skid steer and within 30 minutes had the 17 PT 4"x4"s holes dug and standing in the holes. The next day they had the lower /strappingframing, trusses, roof strapping, roof metal and some lower metal installed. Third day they finished the project in a few hours and the the garage door two guys showed up and installed the garage door. I usually build everything myself but age, weight and shoulder keeps me on the sidelines now. I built my original 12'x20' two story tractor building 12 years ago when I bought my first tractor, a BX2200 and learned about changing the door height.
My wife now gets my old tractor building because this one can hold all my Kubotas plus generator and compressor and much more "stuff".
AStanton
Platinum Member
Thanks for the response, Rooster. Your stonework is impressive; are you a mason?
No, I am an engineer with OCD! :laughing:
The work you see above is about 25% my labor and 50% my vision; the remaining part is the output of an old Irish mason (he's about 70) and two young guys who do the digging, lifting, cutting, and placing.
There are two essential elements when hardscaping your property with stone:
1) Too much is too much. This is very important. Keep the types and sizes and shapes and sources of the stone to a minimum. You have probably seen or been to a property where it looked like the landscaper/owner went to the stone yard and said, "i'll have some of that, and some of this, and some of that over there, and a couple of these, several of those round things, many of these square things, and few tons of that, etc etc etc". That will not work out well. White river rock and gray slate and bluestone and crushed red pebbles do not all coexist in nature together. You can't put tigers and gazelles in the same cage at the zoo -- so don't try to do it with stone either. Pick a theme, and stick with it. If you are going to use colored concrete pavers, no problem. Just don't pile all sorts of natural stone next to it, and vice versa. Hardscape should not look like you went to a quarry and got a little of everything. Settle on what you want to do and stick to the plan. Keep it simple, simple is good.
2) Go with the flow. Don't fight what's there. Look around first. Natural setting? Old house? Pick natural, uncut stone, random shapes, and build it up to look like it was there when the house was built. Contemporary setting? New house? Pick geometric (cut) stone, lower profile shapes, and match the look and feel of the house/environment. Example: You can't put polished black slate up against a old farmhouse; it will never work.
ps
This is no different than building the shed in the first place. Look around before swinging the hammer. If the nearby house has a steep pitched roofline with minimal soffit overhang, then build the shed the same way. Tie it all together. My pics above are an example of "shed overkill", I am well aware of that. But the basic geometry and "fit" with the surroundings and house are not accidental. You can do a similar setup with less expense but the end result can be exactly the same -- it works for what you need it for and doesn't look out of place.
I know this is sounding "zen" and all but I see a lot of cases where the same amount of money results in something that looks awkward IN THE ENVIRONMENT IT'S PLACED IN. A perfectly good shop design simply doesn't work aesthetically in some applications; for some, that is not an issue, but for permanent structures I would advise that you put a little thought in up front because either a) you will live with the results for a long time, or b) you will want to get your money back on resale of the property.
ps
Before I forget, put the largest doors you can on a shop. It just makes things so much easier. Roll door, garage door, carriage doors, sliding doors -- it doesn't matter how you do it, just make the opening large. Very large. As large as you can go. Every door type will come with tradeoffs (e.g. my swing-out carriage doors are a PITA in the winter when there is 2 feet of snow on the ground...) but the message here is to make the door opening large!
wrooster