I guess I beat Ned, huh?

Jason Beam

Member
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1,364
Location
Sacramento, CA
After much delay and procrastination.... With all the ambition of a sloth ... I present to the world, in all her absolute glory, my new shop.

A little recap for those who haven't followed along: We bought the house on my birthday last year, November 16. I did NOT want to have the house for a full year before being able to have my shop. It's not 100% finished, but it's making sawdust and I'm giving tours as of tomorrow morning. My local woodworking club is scheduled to descend upon my new shop at 10am tomorrow morning and gawk at all of the work that's gone into it oh these 11 months.

To be fair - We didn't finish MOVING from the old house until new years. We tackled some house projects in January and I really only got started sometime in very late February. So really, the work on the shop has only been about 7 months.

This time around, the place was MINE. Not a rental. I decided that it's gonna be mine for a good long time - despite my moving record of the past. So to that end, I put every effort into doing as much as possible ONLY ONCE. Time will tell, of course. I won't say I spared no expense - I'm too cheap for the lavish. But I'm also not at all bashful about putting money where it will pay off in MY mind.

To that end - I will delay no longer and introduce the entire history as I have documented it.. Here we go!

The building is a detached 2-car garage with a few feet extra width. Overall she's about 24' x 23' on the outside. It had drywall on much of it's walls and ceiling when we bought the place but NO insulation. Since I'd planned to both insulate as well as rewire, it really was just going to be easier to replace the drywall. Plus, I wanted to change a few things about the ceiling anyway and needed to see just what I was working with.

So our first task was to rip it all out.... Here are some pics of the results:

http://gallery.sawdusters.org/v/Beamer/Garage/Removed+drywall/

After the drywall was out, it came time to work out any and all framing issues I wanted to address. The building was built in 1947 and they did a standard stick frame with rafters and ridge beam. The ridge was teeny - 1x6 and I could tell they had some sag troubles early on. There are 4 rods that span the width of the building. They are anchored into C channel on the outside - through the top plates. These were intended to hold the walls up. Well they're a good 3/4" out of plumb from floor to ceiling...

Anyway - later on, someone came in and added 3 trusses. They scabbed them onto the existing rafters. There isn't a lick of consistency in the spacing of the trusses - they seem to skip every other rafter, but each one is differently spaced. Old buildings got built by guys who put things where they got set down sometimes.

Anyway - here's a shot of the bare building - no steel drywall hangers and some of the rough wiring in place. This turned out to be a poorly planned move - the wiring - because it changed what I wanted to do with the trusses. Instead of adding in two, I only had room to add one. Things just worked out that way and I was tired of delays at that point. Here are some pics of that phase:

http://gallery.sawdusters.org/v/Beamer/Garage/Before+Framing/

After those shots, I set about planning and designing some of my framing changes. I didn't want a flimsy ceiling like was there before and I wanted to insulate the crap out of it. So I set about working with a VERY VERY VERY helpful Joe Johns, of Twisted Knot Woodshop fame, who helped me to determine how to frame things so that I could do that. He also tutored me on the basics of framing and such. In the end, I built one truss instead of two due to some clearance issues. Later, those issues would be eliminated, but the deed was done by this point. No biggie.

I also discovered that the existing closet (formerly bathroom) was framed very badly - 2x4's laid flat and i wouldn't have been able to insulate the ceiling very well as was so I ripped the old down and built a new one - slightly bigger and with a vaulted ceiling for my DC plans down the road.

This next album shows my insanely amateur framing job. It's holding, so i guess it wasn't TOO bad. And Joe was guiding me faithfully along the way. Basically what I did was tied all the trusses together with what Joe 'n I called "Tweeners" that were spaced 16" on center so that the insulation batts would fit in nicely. Here are some of those framing shots:

http://gallery.sawdusters.org/v/Beamer/Garage/Framing+Done/

With the framing done, it was time to really get crazy. I'd decided to lay a floor down because i liked it so much in my old shop. I came up with a grand plan and a very large shopping list. One saturday, it was hauling day. Here's some shots of the trailer loaded with insulation:

http://gallery.sawdusters.org/v/Beamer/Garage/Comedy/

That was the first load. I didn't take pics of the others because I don't want to encourage anyone to do something so dangerous as haul 40 sheets of 1/2" 4x8 drywall in a single load on a trailer rated for 1400lbs gvw. That little HF trailer paid for itself and it's replacement in spades that day. That trailer sagged so bad ... but it held together the 3 miles home from home depot!

Anywho......

Then I went after that insulation... R13 everywhere because the 32' rolls are cheap and they did a FINE job in the old leaky shop. If it wasn't enough, I was okay with adding more later - but i suspect it's gonna be just fine. The insulation was done in a 3-day weekend, if i recall. The wife was VERY helpful in being my cutter while i stapled 'em into place. The ceiling went quick since they were all regular sized and shaped. The walls had diagonal bracing at the corners and that slowed things a bit.

With Joe's advice, I picked up 3/4" T&G subflooring and a roll of plastic. Laid on 2x4's I put down my flooring and set about doing the insulation. I painted the floor a nice bright white with garage floor paint. I had to do all this in stages because I had no place to put my tools. It probably took a couple-three weekends to lay the flooring and get it painted.

http://gallery.sawdusters.org/v/Beamer/Garage/insulation/

Once the flooring was down it was time to rent the drywall lift and start hangin the ceiling. We did that one fateful saturday morning. Best 35 bucks I have ever spent - renting a drywall lift was THE best thing we did that weekend. In about 4 hours, we'd hung 16 sheets and the ceiling was pretty much done at that point. Before that, I also buttoned up much of the wiring that I needed to do.

Here are a few shots of the insulation and flooring completed and drywall going up...

http://gallery.sawdusters.org/v/Beamer/Garage/Flooring+done+and+ceiling+going+up/


Now ...

I got a little tired of all the pictures and I really did start slacking off about here. We finished hanging all the drywall that weekend and I started on the absolutely horrible task of taping and mudding. The taping part was nothing ... i flew through that. But ... being the amateur that I am, I laid it on FAT thick. I literally avoided this thing for a good month ... sanding that drywall mud SUCKED a bunch. I cashed in every favor with the wife to have her out there to help sand. I could go twice as long with her out there keeping me company than I could alone.

The walls got sanded and we really really tried to keep going at it on the ceiling but that was where most of the messy mudding job was done. The existing structure was quite uneven and I had a good amount of gaps due to having to cut around so much. So ... two months probably slipped by before i'd had it. I decided the walls were good enough and the ceiling was getting textured so i didn't have to look at it. It's just a shop, after all. Right????

Got me a texture gun and sprayed it on WAAAAAAAAY too thick. But that really uncorked the backup fast. Once that texture was up, we primed and painted in a weekend and I set about finishing up the wiring. Then the tools started getting placed .. and a month or two later, I finally started making sawdust.

There were two or three episodes of crawling around the attic for sealing the dust collection work and laying a bit of a floor up there....

So ... after ALLLLLLLL of this ... I am about to show you the quantum leap 5 months from those last shots - she's a functioning shop. I still have a bit to do like get the router table up and running and some dust collection work and storage stuff. Lots of organizing still needs to be done also. But it's up.

And tomorrow, the local woodworking club is coming over and having a gander it the whole thing.... but you guys get the sneak preview!

So ... here she goes :)

http://gallery.sawdusters.org/v/Beamer/Garage/FINAL/


Enjoy!!
 
Wow, that looks like a great place to make some sawdust. Nice job. :thumb: I hope you have some paper towels handy, because the woodworking club's gonna be drooling all over the place when they see it. ;)
 
Beautiful shop Jason! You did a first class job with the construction, photographic documentation, and write-up. Your attention to detail is great and "thinking ahead" in your planning will really pay off.

One quick question. What is the purpose of the attached wooden block(s) on your mini-lathe?
 

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Really nice looking shop, Jason. Looks nice and bright too.

(You really need to change the date on your camera - January of 2002 was a long time ago.;):rolleyes:)

Nancy
 
That looks like a wonderfaul place to spend some time and make some sawdust. I really like the DC/Comp closet and it looks like you've got a good workflow layout too.
 
Beautiful shop Jason! You did a first class job with the construction, photographic documentation, and write-up. Your attention to detail is great and "thinking ahead" in your planning will really pay off.

One quick question. What is the purpose of the attached wooden block(s) on your mini-lathe?

Good eye, Frank!

The club has a get-together every weekend at somebody's shop for various subjects. Once a month, we do a turning meeting - we call 'em SIG's for special interest groups - somehow that acronym became a word to refer to the actual meetings. The turning SIG usually gets together and turns stuff like pens and bottle stoppers. It's usually attended by a dozen or so folks and we usually get 3-5 lathes together and everybody has a blast.

Since I bring my lathe to almost every one of these events, I discovered a small problem with the Jet Mini lathe: heavy! That maple block serves as a handle for moving it in and out of the trunk of my car and such. The other side has a nice place already built in where the belt door hinges open but the tailstock end is just flat and there's no easy place to grab. So i stuck that block on there through the existing holes for a bed extension. Works out great! :)
 
Thanks for the kind words everyone! :)

It was a LOT of work and some things got done mostly because of the "While we're at it" concept made it easier. I am so fortunate to have the ability to have such a place. It's very nice to go out there and piddle around for a couple hours after a long day at the office.

My darling wife has been very generous with the leeway on all of this. And since she's standing over my shoulder right now, I figured I'd better mention her. :D

Thanks for looking, everybody! :)

P.S. First actual project will either be a cherry coffee table or a cherry entertainment center for the living room. Soon as I finish up a few other things like DC for the router table and clamp storage. :)
 
That maple block serves as a handle for moving it in and out of the trunk of my car and such. The other side has a nice place already built in where the belt door hinges open but the tailstock end is just flat and there's no easy place to grab. So i stuck that block on there through the existing holes for a bed extension. Works out great! :)

Thank you Jason; an excellent idea!
 
you bettt!!!

Thanks for the kind words everyone! :)

It was a LOT of work and some things got done mostly because of the "While we're at it" concept made it easier. I am so fortunate to have the ability to have such a place. It's very nice to go out there and piddle around for a couple hours after a long day at the office.

My darling wife has been very generous with the leeway on all of this. And since she's standing over my shoulder right now, I figured I'd better mention her. :D

Thanks for looking, everybody! :)

P.S. First actual project will either be a cherry coffee table or a cherry entertainment center for the living room. Soon as I finish up a few other things like DC for the router table and clamp storage. :)


if it wasnt for our better halves we wouldnt be where alot of us are today in the shop department, be it interests the same or (no.1) support..you done right fine there jason:thumb::thumb:
 
Goooooood Job, Jason. You're REALLY going to enjoy it for a long time. (by the way, where's your BANDSAW?:D:D:D You know you've just GOTTA have one of those.:D
 
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