I debated about starting this thread now or later, but decided on now because, well...I might forget something.

As a little background, at our previous property, I was blessed with a reasonably sized, fully conditioned space for my shop in what was originally a three-and-a-half vehicle garage structure with an upstairs for storage. I had about 700 sq ft of usable shop space on the first floor with only the minor headache of the stairway to the upper level kinda located middle-back of the space. Compressor and cyclone had their own private, sound reduced bedroom so they could do their thing without disturbing the peace too much out in the shop area and the majority lumber was stored upstairs. We moved 9 months ago to our "downsize" property and I set up temporary shop in the "garage". It's a nice space, but way too cramped for the things I like and need to do. Now that the old property is sold, some financial resources necessary for projects here at the new place are freed up so I can move forward with my desire to have a nice, dedicated shop building in the backyard. The target size for the new shop will be 24' wide, 32' or 36' long (depending on building type) and with 10' sidewalls. About 870 sq ft, more or less. One "man door", one larger door for machinery/materials/projects and a few windows for natural light. The building will be color coordinated so it looks appropriate with our home.

The general project can be broken up, more or less, to this...and I'm sure some things will get modified over time:


  • Tree work - removal of dead trees including one smack in the middle of where the shop will go. The plan is to not have to modify or endanger any live trees and that affected building placement. While I would prefer the building to be on the other side of the half-acre lot, setbacks would require removal of a very large, mature willow tree and that's not going to happen. This work has been completed
  • Survey - the exact boundaries of the property had to be established, particularly because on the side that the building will go, the actual property line is about 8 feet beyond the fence that separates our yard from the neighboring property's driveway and backyard. This is because of a driveway easement created when the property we own was subdivided from a larger space. Minimum lot size at the time (and still is) 20,000 sq ft (half-acre) and that was how it worked out. This is actually a benefit for the building, however, because it will be able to be about four feet from the fence line rather than 15 feet. The 15 foot setback is measured from the actual property line. The surveyor was out on Friday this past week to set the corners/boundaries and he was very nice in also setting a number of points important to this project for both rear and side setbacks and some other things. So this work has been completed
  • Zoning - zoning approval is required for "Residential Accessory Buildings" in our jurisdiction that are over 200 sq ft. Submission for that requires a plot plan that shows all existing structures, boundaries, utilities, etc., plus proposed including "stick figures to indicate motion". I've completed that plot plan and am ready to submit. Of course, there is always a catch. "Normally", the jurisdiction wants the zoning application and the building permit to go in concurrently. The latter requires a plan. The only way to get the plan at the required detail level is to have already made a decision on what to build and who to build it followed by the transfer of a large amount of money. Chicken and egg problem for me because I don't want to commit to a specific building type and vendor yet...still working on that. Fortunately, the zoning/building people for our jurisdiction are "nice" (really) and they can do a zoning opinion/verification letter for a "small fee" which is substantially less than the amount of money I'd have to put out for a building commitment that comes with the required plans for a permit. The zoning application will be going in shortly as soon as I have all my water-fowl properly lined up in a neat row
  • Building Decision/Pricing - I'm considering multiple building types for this project and ultimately, it's likely going to come down to cost. The potential options include both wood and metal post-frame, prefab stick built and stick built. All will include a concrete floor...as much as I would love to have a wood floor, the foundation requirements to pull that off would be financially impractical, although I will explore it. I have already started some preliminary quotes to help with the "what kind" question which will be followed by the "by whom" question
  • Permit - the building permit (and resubmission of the pre-verified zoning application) will come once I have "a plan". Literally
  • Ground prep - I will likely do most of this myself with the Big Orange Power Tool, which while small, should be able to handle the task. The area for the building is nearly level and the amount of organics to be removed is surprisingly little. Coordination with the next step is essential to insure jurisdictional requirements are met
  • Concrete - in most cases, I will have to contract for the concrete work independently from the building. Working with a local concrete contractor potentially lowers the cost since a building installer from out of the area would be subcontracting it, anyway, and marking it up
  • Building Structure - stating the obvious...once there's concrete the structure can go up. Caveat...wood post frame normally would go up prior to a floor being poured, even if above ground mounting of the posts is used on poured columns in the ground. So again, the decision on "what" may affect the general order of operations
  • Electric Service - I believe that the best solution for this shop building is a separate electrical service from the house for logistical reasons and to keep it separate from the whole house generator that was just installed. The house electric service is about as far away from the proposed shop building as it can be, making for messy and long trenching, too. Overhead from both the front and back of our property is available and both options will be explored with the local electric provider. My preference would be for service from the line behind the property because it can be straight areal to the building. From the front may require a pole. This decision will affect where the service enters the shop, but I may put a panel at the opposite end from the main service panel for convenience and they can just be flip-flopped. This will be accounted for in the plan submitted for the building permit. The initial electrical will be basic just for inspection purposes. Machine circuits and general lighting work will be completed later
  • Final inspection/CO - can't skip this step...nature of the beast
  • HVAC - it is my intention to install a minisplit for heating/cooling as I had at the previous shop. Uber-efficient and I can go the self-install route to save money
  • Interior - interior work will include insulation, lighting, wall coverings and what not, plus the construction of a sound reduced closet for the DC and compressor as I had previously. I may deck on top for storage
  • Move machines in - "say no more"
  • Electrical, air and duct work - built out to suit final arrangement of machines and work areas


Sounds like fun, eh? Here' are a couple photos of the target location for the building. Updates will be made to this thread as the project progresses, but it will be slow for awhile because of the zoning, decision and permit process.

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