New Shop Building
July 20, 05 - Construction of the new 12 x 15 foot shop building started yesterday right after I got the building permit. As of noon today (July 20, 05), I have the foundation and floor joists finished. The next step will be to put in the floor insulation and the floor itself. When that is done I will start framing the walls.
July 21, 05 - Today I put in the insulation for the floor and then put the floor boards down. The floor is insulated with 2" of styofoam board (R10) with a layer of R11 styrofiam batting on top of that, giving a total of R21. The floor itself is 3/4" OSB tongue and groove. The total cost to this point is $540.00. Tomorrow I will start framing the walls.
July 22, 05 - Today I framed and stood up both side walls and the back wall. Tomorrow I plan to frame up the front wall. Then I will have to run into town for more material before I can put plywood on the walls and put the rafters up. If I keep working at this rate, I should have the building closed up and ready to start finishing by the end of next week.
July 23, 05 - This morning I finished framing the walls. The green tarp is to cover the project when rain threatens. The next steps will be to put plywood on the walls and then to build the roof. I have to finish off a model and then go sailing for the rest of the weekend, so the shop project will be on hold until Tuesday.
July 28, 05 - Since my last update I have made considerable progress. As you can see the walls now have plywood and tar paper on them. The window framing is covered by plywood at present to keep water out of the building. Today I finished building the rafters. The next step will be to put the plywood and shingles on the roof. Once that is done I will close up the gable ends and then install the door and windows. If all goes well, I should be ready to start cedar shingling the walls next Monday.
July 29, 05 - I went shopping this morning and bought the plywood for the roof plus the door and windows. This afternoon I put the plywood on the front half of the roof and then installed the door and the two windows. Tomorrow morning I will finish putting plywood and tar paper on the roof. I am going sailing tomorrow afternoon and I am going to take Sunday off from shed building.
August 6, 05 - Since my last update I have finished putting plywood and tarpaper on the roof. I have also shingled the roof and finished the trim on the front of the shop. The front wall is now ready for me to start nailing on the cedar shingles. I still have to finish the trim on the back wall and under the roof gables before I can shingle those parts of the building. My progress has been a bit slow because I went sailing for a couple of days and spent some time working on models.
August 16, 05 - I have been shingling in my spare time over the last 10 days. This morning I finished the front of the new shop building. This is what the entire building will look like when it is finished. I am using white cedar shingles. I stain them with driftwood gray semi-transparent stain before installation. The trim and color match the house. I will do the south wall next, since it is the only other wall visible from the house. Please note that my camera was tilted. The building is level. Incidentally, we have over an inch of rain Sunday and I was pleased to find that my little building is completely weather proof.
Aug 28, 05 - I have really been taking my time shingling the south wall of the shop, but today I finally nailed the last cedar shingle on. I now have only the north and east walls to do. They will go more quickly since they have no windows. For the south wall I only pre-stained the shingles that touch the white trim. It is forecast to rain later today, so I won't be staining this wall until later in the week when I can count on 24 hours without rain. I have definitely discovered that I do not enjoy nailing cedar shingles onto walls.
Sept 11, 05 - Today I finished shingling last wall of the new shop building. The exterior is now finished. The three pictures above show all four walls.
Sept 11, 05 (cont.) - When the weather hasn't been conducive to shingling, I have also been working on the interior. In this picture you can see that I have finished insulating the outer walls. There is no wiring present because I am using double 2x4 construction. That means that ther will be two insulated 2x4 walls, one inside the other to give a total wall thickness of 8". The inner wall will include the wiring. Building the walls this way gives a very highly insulated building. I expect to be able to adequately heat the 12x16 building with a 500 watt or maybe even smaller electric baseboard heater. In addition to the double thickness walls, I will be insulating the roof with to R-19 and the ceiling to R-11.
Oct 1, 05 - Since my last update I have framed the inner walls. After that I wired the building for lights and wall plugs. I then hand dug the 70 foot long by 2 foot deep trench for the wiring to bring power from the house. I can tell you that the soil in my yard is very rocky (what a surprise on the coast of Maine). The biggest rock I dug up was about 2 feet on a side. After I recovered from digging the trench I installed the conduit and pulled the wire in for the 30 amp feed. After that was done I insulated the inner walls and the ceiling and started installing the gypsum wall board. As of today, the ceiling and three walls are "gyp-rocked". When I finish the last wall I will tape the seams and "mud" the screw heads and then paint the interior and the floor. The last step will be to install the window and door trim. At that point the building will be finished.