The New Building (aka Man Cave)

This is Michael, making my first official post.

Before we even moved to a new house, one of the “must-haves” on our list was a shop. This would be a place to store camping gear, work on our cars, build things, oh and of course retreat to some peace and quiet on this farm that now has more females than males. That is in another post, “Chicks Rule”.

Well unfortunately when we found our “Salt Creek Farm”, it had everything we really wanted, EXCEPT A SHOP. Multiple buildings and structures, yes. But no shop…..So, the process of planning a building began.

Realizing there was the possibility we would not have a shop building where we moved to, I had begun “shopping” before we sold our old home just to to see how much it would cost and what was available. It had been a 2 month (or more) process of looking at building size, color, whether I wanted a sliding or roll-up door, whether it would have windows, and of course doing this all within the budget we had decided on. I decided on a 24×36 wood framed pole building with 10′ walls and metal roofing and siding. It would have 3 windows, a 12′ wide x 8′ high roll-up garage style door and a standard 36″ wide entry door.

The day finally came when I placed the order (and spent our money). I had spoken with multiple companies during the planning process and decided to go with Hansen Pole Buildings as Wayde was wonderful to work with and always got back to me quickly. It was ordered as a “kit”, where the plans, all building materials and even a wonderful construction manual were ordered from one company. The date was May 29th, and in a week I had my blueprints delivered.

I received my first delivery July 16th, and everything else arrived as scheduled over the next few weeks. It was kinda like Christmas, when you get this really wonderful present, only to realize that you are the one who has to put it together!

So, after a few delays with the county building permit, and the trusses coming in later than expected, the end of August was already here and I was able to get started. I took some vacation days off the week of labor day, hoping to get a good chunk of it done that week.

So, Friday evening of August 29th, it started, and I set the posts into the 24″ wide x 40″ deep holes I had already dug with the wonderful Bobcat I rented, and braced them up. The county wanted 54″ deep, but our engineered plans won!

Saturday morning a good friend Dayne and his wife came out and helped me pour concrete in the holes, we made quick work of it and got it done in about 3 hours!

And here is the first picture after the footings were poured and the bracing was removed from the structural posts. This is Sunday morning,

The next step was to get the skirt boards and the grade level perfectly aligned, because everything else measured from these points. These are the boards positioned horizonatally at the bottom of the posts in the picture below. You can also see where I have notched out the tops of the posts where the trusses will rest.

Next came the trusses and roof framing. My neighbor came over and helped me set the trusses on top of the posts and I finished up most of the roof framing on Monday. This is where we were at Monday night.

Tuesday, another good friend of mine (thank you Ken) came over to help finish up the roof framing, set the post for the entry door and started to put up roof insulation and steel. It was early afternoon when I had to admit that I was not going to put the roof on myself. I have always had a riduculous fear of heights. I had to swallow my pride and admit defeat, and called in the pros to do it. Before the afternoon was over, a neighbor down the road, who also builds pole buildings, had called me back to say 2 of his guys would be there Wednesday morning to knock out the roof for me. WOW! Tuesday afternoon was a horrible setback when I realized I wasnt going to get the roof finished that day, and before the day was over, a solution was presented. God works in all things and I was sure thankful for this little miracle.

So here is Wednesday after the guys came out and did the roof; in 3 1/2 hours! It was great to see how they walked all over the roof and did it so quickly and also did such a great job. Great guys too. Thanks GPEC crew!

Thursday and Friday were spent framing in the walls, including the windows and door openings. We even got a little bit of wall steel up.

Saturday and Sunday were spent putting up all the remaining wall steel, which went up quick with the help of my next door neighbor; thanks Dean, you are awesome! And by the end of the day Sunday all of my fascia, gable and corner trims were done.

Now, hopefully this coming weekend I will be able to get the garage door in and start enjoying the space. The boys are already planning to have their own workbench, a fridge and a flat-screen TV. I can’t say I will argue with them much though, sounds pretty good to me!

Overall  approximately 125 man hours, 2500 metals screws and over 1000 3″ galvanized nails and 600 1 1/2″ nails. And no smashed thumbs, bad cuts, falls from a ladder or scaffold, or any other major mishaps.

Thanks to my wife for taking care of everything else on the farm while I was toiling away at this project, and thanks to my two strong boys who helped more than they know.

C Ya later, from the farm!

Michael