Being medically retired (NET cancer, stage 4), my hobby has become my go-to activity when I have the energy for it.
One nice thing about living here in Texas is that the property taxes on our home can't go up due to my diagnosis. But that hasn't stopped the state from dramatically increasing the property tax for my woodshop property that's roughly 4 miles away. The annual taxes on that shop have gone from $300 a year to over $3k. So my plan is now to build a new shop beside our home and then sell the old shop property.
My old shop is 1500 sq. ft and is an insulated metal building on 1.25 acres. It's been great, but as I said, the taxes are ridiculous and as real estate is still hot here, it would more than finance the cost of a new shop.
After looking at several options and getting bids from a couple of contractors, I've decided to have us (my wife and I) do the general contracting. Won't be too hard as we live at the build site. I've had to GC some work for myself before and while not fun, it beats dealing with contractors in Texas. (If you don't know, Texas has very, very few laws to protect people from unscrupulous contractors ripping them off. Nothing stops them from getting large cash payments upfront, leaving before the work starts or mid-project and then pocketing the cash. They then have their company declare bankruptcy and they start a new company.)
My plan is for a 30 x 68 split-face block building with 12 foot tall walls. There will be a green house attached at one end for my wife. That'll be about 16x22. This will give me approximately 2000 sq. ft and my wife gets around 350 aq. ft.
All that being said, one of my son-in-laws owns a stone and masonry business. I plan to have him do the shell of the new shop. It will be significantly cheaper than frame construction right now - based on the bids I've gotten. He'll use split-face block that has IWR (integrated water repellent) and IWR mortar. The roof will be traditional engineered wooden trusses.
As split-face block is always a challenge for the inside of a workshop (hanging things, etc), I plan to have J bolts put between blocks in a repeating pattern with the threaded portion of the J bolt protruding into the interior of the shop. That way I can place sheets of insulation onto the bolts, then drill holes in 4x8 sheets of plywood and hang them directly over the insulation sheets. So the inside of the shop will be all plywood without having to build a 2x4 structure around the entire inside perimeter of the shop.
After finally getting HOA approval for the project, I'm ready to line up my engineer and my subs and get rolling.
But finally, here's my question. Has anyone done this or something like it? Any hard-won wisdom to share?