Garage/Shop/Lounge Build - a step by step guide on how to waste money!

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A couple have asked about the garage/shop/lounge we are building and a thread is probably a good spot for me to track progress.

Background…we live out of the city to the SW, on 11 acres of relatively steep terrain covered with mostly old growth forest. Our house has a fairly standard attached 20x24 garage…it’s nice because it’s heated but it’s also in the basement level of the house so it only has 8’ ceilings. I have built some cars out of it but it’s not optimal.

Given the setup, I wanted to put up another building for working on projects. Was initially thinking about a 30x40 behind the house (which is actually closer to the road). It would have required less clearing but would have had a steeper access road…and 30x40 was probably the max.

Talking to everyone in the area, bigger is always better! A bunch of local guys have shops of varying configuration so I had a lot of inspiration to draw from. I had landed on 40x60 and we decided we’d clear an area on the far side of the pond from the house.

We were going to use the access past the blue car in the pic…



This pic is looking at the start of what we’d have to clear and level…there was a lot of material to pull out!

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In January of 2018, we started clearing…

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Clearing coming along…



Burning stumps, brush, and unusable wood…



We cut a lot of wood in 2018!

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In June of 2018, we ran all of the utilities over to the clearing and installed septic over by the shop. The original garage apron at the house was garbage so it came out and the pad in the house garage was in rough shape too so we tore that out as well. Having that out made it easy to run the water from the front of out those while everything else came from the side or the back of the house.





At this point, the plan was to build the structure into the slope…and we were still going forward with 40x60. This is what the area looked like after the work…

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Got the garage pad and apron poured, along with a new garage door, and recycled asphalt down by the house…getting non-active areas tidied up where possible…



Once the area was cleared, I staked out the footprint and we realized it was going to feel too tight over there. And doing building layout planning, we figured out that 40x60 was going to be too small.

So in January of 2019, we moved more material to accommodate a bigger footprint and also give space around the building (rather than building into the slope). We also made other areas bigger which allows for a 180* turn for a truck with a trailer, even with the building in place.





We had an abundance of topsoil so we were able to completely dress the slope…got grass established and slopes nicely stabilized.

[Gman.45]

Caught my interest for sure - so was the last post/pic from 2018 as well? Have you started/finished construction on the 40x60 shop yet? Very interested to see further pics/info. BEAUTIFUL home by the way, place like that along with a large shop/garage is exactly the sort of place I want, outside of Calgary but not too far. Perfect...jealous. More pics/info!

edit - I should have stfu and waited, didn't realize you were still posting.

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I’ll be posting for a while! It’s 45x80 now and the footing is poured, structure is up, roof is on and windows/doors are going in right now.

I’ll have to continue with more posts later…

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A bit of a diversion in 2020…hadn’t really progressed anything on the big shop other than planning so we built a 16x30 garage behind the house. The long term plan for the building was plow truck parking but short term was a project car bay.

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16x30 garage continued…

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16x30 continued…









Made some trim out of 2x4 and 2x6…cheaper version of the fir trim inside the house.

[JfuckinC]

How old are you? Can you adopt me and my cars?

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I wasn’t planning on it but got this for the 16x30…it’ll eventually get pulled and put in the big shop.

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How old are you? Can you adopt me and my cars?

Probably not old enough to be your daddy!

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Back to the shop build…the plan pivoted from a 40x60 to a 45x80. We wanted to do a barn style build…then we don’t have to match the other buildings and it fits the style of the area. The other benefit is lots of ceiling height.

The layout was to include a dirty shop area with 22’ ceilings, a clean car storage area with 14’ ceilings, a lounge with 10’ ceilings, and a bathroom/utility room. With the extra ceiling height, we planned for 2 rooms over the lounge and a large storage area over the clean car storage area.

In 2022, my friend that did the excavation linked me up with a general contractor he works with regularly. He works in Foothills a lot and has been doing high end builds for 30 years…so he has been huge in finally getting things going.

First step in 2022 was digging for the foundation…





And then concrete for the foundation…

[birdman86]

Subd

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Filling in the excavation and doing forms for the interior footings…





At the same time, connection to the septic was run and utilities were located to the final tie in at the building.



Looks like at least one car will fit.



This was the extent of the work for 2022. The partial wall is for the electrical panel in advance of the full framing effort.

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While the foundation was being done, the roof trusses were being designed and built…a huge hassle with the company but they were eventually delivered at the end of December.



They are a two piece design…and take up a bit of space.





And that officially took us to the end of 2022.

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In 2023, work on the structure kicked into “high” gear…as high as it could be given supply and labour joys of the world today.

Most of the material for framing was delivered and work started on the shell…

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More framing…there’s a lot of framing pics!

Second level going together…

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