New Shop Diary - Updated 13 October 2009

[crokett]

pool
pul
–noun
6. A large hole in the ground in which to throw large sums of money.

I thought that was a boat. Oh wait. A boat is a hole in the water. My pool is an above ground so no hole in the ground. Also it only cost a couple hundred and probably costs only 50 bucks or so a season to maintain.

[Bob Crosley]

We actually bought the kids the same pool this year. Great value for the money. I've been in 1 or 2 times too.

Originally, we bought the house 3 years ago and were going to refinance and take out an equity loan and put in an in-ground pool. But now that 25% of the value of our home has gone away.... The $350 Wal-Mart special works just fine.

Shop is coming along great. I'm seriously jealous. What's the total footprint?

[crokett]

The shop is 16x24. The porch is about 5' wide x24.

If you have any questions about the pool or the water let me know. Three suggestions I have are to plumb a ball valve into the pump intake. It makes changing filters a LOT easier and keeps all the water from draining out and/or having to reprime. Also, unless you got the deluxe kit that included a real vacuum, get one that attaches to the pump. The one that came with mine was the garden hose powered one that is one step removed from useless. Lastly, go on over to troublefreepool.com and read their pool school stuff. Those guys know a LOT and helped me clear up a serious algae bloom the first season we had ours.

[crokett]

I started the porch. Floor is down, posts are up and the beam that supports the rafters is set. I didn't get quite as far as I wanted - other things needed doing plus I wanted some family time this weekend. Today I was dodging rain showers all day.



Doors are on and a few other odds and ends are done. The doors will eventually be painted white. I also will get the lock rekeyed to match the house key.

[dbhost]

Doors are on and a few other odds and ends are done. The doors will eventually be painted white. I also will get the lock rekeyed to match the house key.

It's your call. But you might consider a completely different key for the shop. I don't know your family situation, but I would not want unsupervised children with a key in my shop for sure!

[crokett]

I have two girls, 4 and 2 who don't want anything to do with power tools and probably won't when they are older. It is a very low risk that they would go into the shop. I do see your point of it being that much easier to get into the shop though. My only other option would be to replace the lockset entirely since I don't have a key to the current one.

[wardprobst]

If it's good quality, take it to a locksmith, they can rekey easily.
DP

[Hellrazor]

David,

After all of the work to take it apart, move it and reassemble it, do you think it would have been easier to just frame it with new lumber?

[crokett]

Mike,

Good question. My dad asked me that recently. Here's the answer I gave him. I don't think so. I did end up reframing the roof since the sections were too big to handle alone, but all the pieces were precut for me so no cutting rafters from scratch or cutting sheathing, minus patching some pieces that went missing. I am also not sure I could get the materials - including siding and insulation for what the shop cost. Plus once I got a wall up and plumbed, then the wall was ready to go. I didn't have to insulate or hang siding, except on one area where we took it off to separate the sections. I didn't have to cut outside trim to fit either. Most of the time it took to put down the porch floor was prep - removing old joist hangers and nails. That is less time than it wold take to reframe from scratch and cut everything to length. I learned a good deal about how a building is constructed without actually having to do the construction, if you know what I mean.

However, most important is that the shop was my wife's idea. She found it on craigslist and said go get it if you think it is a good deal. Initally I said no, to much else to do but she was willing to put stuff on hold, so I wasn't going to argue.

Oh and I learned an awful lot about what is possible. Too often I am predisposed to staring at the mountain and giving up before I try. there were times back in April when I saw the stack of parts lying in my yard that part of me was thinking they'd make a nice bonfire.

[crokett]

Other stuff to do this weekend so between yesterday and today I had basically a day. I got further than I thought though.

Here is where I left it yesterday with the sheathing on the porch roof:


And today. Sistered the rafters that needed it, finished nailing down sheathing. Foofing felt is on, facia is on most of it. I still have facia on the back and have to replace a couple pieces. After that I will put on the drip edge and am ready for shingles.



Yes, I finally sat in one of those green chairs in the shade on my porch and drank a beer today.

[cgallery]

Lookin' great, almost too nice for a shop!

[crokett]

Roof is done. Porch railings and a step are on. I made the ramp for the shop entrance too. I'm not sure you can see it in the pic but the tops of the railings are not quite inline. Sitting for as long as they did they warped some. I had to wrestle them into place. The slats were also all nailed on with finish nails. The railings fell apart pretty easily so I basically rebuilt them all.



The ramp. I added curbs to keep stuff from rolling off. It also makes it look a little more finished. After three monts it was nice working with shiny new lumber that didn't need the nails, etc taken out of it.

[BobSch]

Looks great, David.

But it would look better in MY backyard...

[crokett]

Nothing too dramatic. Siding is on the gables, soffit vents are installed and the trim around the soffits is on. Next steps are to fix the trim around the back window, do a LOT of caulking and then paint. I was hoping to have the outside done the end of August. Now with what I have coming up it looks like it will be the first or second week of September.

[crokett]

Ok Second try at this.

Painted outside. Yeah I know the trim is oversprayed but it needs priming and painting anyway.



Inside. Gable ends are insulated and sheathed. Ceiling is insulated and mostly sheathed. Walls have been repaired and floor is fixed in the back half. I will finish the ceiling at night this week, trim and should be able to paint inside by the weekend.

North (back) end:


One side of the ceiling. One side is 1/4" ply cause I had it and needed to use it somewhere. It is also considerably lighter than drywall. Other side and under the rafter ties is 1/4" OSB cause it is 1/2 the price of ply. It will match better after it is painted and I don't plan to look at it much anyway.


My tool cart. I got tired of moving all the tools around while working inside so made this last week. The shelf was under the workbench before I moved the building and that bench is not going back up. I had the casters laying around. The Bosch tools are in front just for Cabinetman.