Shop redo and renovation - The Bird's Nest

Blaze

Blaze

The Jeeper Reaper
Joined
Aug 9, 2005
Location
Wake Forest, NC
So with me closing down the Jeep shop to move home and build cars with my boys, I need to redo my shop to make it more functional. Right now it is a stupid layout, not sure why a car guy built a shop like this, but it is what it is. Shop is a 26x39 with 8' ceilings and two garage doors. The doors are stupid, one is in the middle of the long side, and the other is on the back corner of the short side. It is barely functional as a shop.

First phase is to build a long 15'x39' lean-to storage area off the back of the shop. That way I can keep all the stuff from inside in there while I redo the inside.

Next phase is going involve reworking the joists to make the ceiling 12'6 to fit the lifts. It'll be a kind of vaulted ceiling look, but it'll work. Talked to the architectural and structural guys at work and they came up with a design that will work. I'm going to do 2/3 of the shop like this so I can still have some attic storage.

Final phase is to grind and paint the floors and paint the walls. Plan is to sheetrock/whiteboard the ceilings and paint the walls so I can make it bright and nice. Then install the lifts. There will be a 2-post in the middle and a 4-post on the right side that can store my 98 TA and 89 Firebird Formula.

Pretty excited about this. I'll update with pictures as I go. Here are the current pics I have.
Outside:
2017-02-21 07.12.05.jpg


Inside:
2017-01-21 16.50.51.jpg

2017-01-21 16.50.35.jpg

2017-01-21 16.50.24.jpg
 
subbed for ideas for my shop after the move,
 
I've been looking into options on a shop at the GF's house. Interested to see what you do with the roof for the lift.....
 
I realized that I probably need to pick a color for the shop so I can paint the back side when I do the lean-to and when I move the garage door to the front and convert the other to a man door.

I'm wanting to do a red tin roof, so I'm thinking I am going to do a vintage Mobil gas station theme with a light gray siding and red man doors. Leave the garage doors white. Maybe remove the shutters. Possibly even put a Mobil Pegasus on the side.

For the roof joist mod, the roof is currently prefab 2x4 trusses. The plan is to sister 2x8 up to the side of them, glued and screwed, attached at the exterior walls. They will be gusseted with plywood triangles glued and screwed to the outside. Then I will have a 2x6 ceiling joist at 12'6" gusseted and glued and screwed, then trim out the lower section of prefab truss. Kind of hard to explain, but I've gotten the thumbs up from people who do that kind of stuff. I'm just an air and water guy. :p
 
You'll need an engineer to seal the changes. Roof trusses are not meant to be modified.

If your co-worker is a PE and will sign off on the design, cool. If not, you'd better hire someone who will- if you can find one
 
broncosbybart said:
You'll need an engineer to seal the changes. Roof trusses are not meant to be modified.

If your co-worker is a PE and will sign off on the design, cool. If not, you'd better hire someone who will- if you can find one
Click to expand...

I'm basically building new joists butted up against the side of the existing ones. Technically I wouldn't need to sister them together, but I figured what the hell, they are there so might as well use them for a little extra support.
I'm sure they would sign off on them if I needed them to. I don't though.

The other idea was to find a way to lift the roof up 4', but that would have been too expensive. I talked to a company that lifts houses to add extra floors to them and they wanted $12k just to raise it up.
 
Also, in the end, we also may end up just tearing the roof off and extending the walls and building the roof back. The roof leaks anyway and needs to be replaced, so not sure what would be less time consuming in the end.
 
I would still like to see a DIY job of raising the whole building up 4', and building new 4' walls below with sistered in studs, LOL.

How is the wood under the shingles? If the roof is leaking and there is some rot in the sheeting, then it almost seems easier to just tear off the roof and trusses, then build the new trusses how you like.
 
drkelly said:
I would still like to see a DIY job of raising the whole building up 4', and building new 4' walls below with sistered in studs, LOL.

How is the wood under the shingles? If the roof is leaking and there is some rot in the sheeting, then it almost seems easier to just tear off the roof and trusses, then build the new trusses how you like.
Click to expand...

Well, we have a plan that we think has a high probability of not killing us, but it would make the shop look HUGE. And still has the small chance of killing us. :lol:

A guy here mentioned something about a free span truss design, and someone also mentioned it on garageforum, so I looked in to it. Might be the best option, it involves having two larger joists smacked together and purlins between the two. I can put one between the two high bays and it'll give me more ceiling space and be less work overall. And easier to sheetrock and all. Going to talk to the guys here at work about this. I think this might be the best option.

sunroof3.jpg
 
The issue there is that the bottom chord of the trusses technically needs to be braced.

I was a truss designer in a past life. I went with attic trusses over two bays of the garage and vaulted trusses over the bay with the lift. The trusses and sheathing went up in a day with a crane and a few amigos that worked for a buddy of mine.
 
broncosbybart said:
The issue there is that the bottom chord of the trusses technically needs to be braced.

I was a truss designer in a past life. I went with attic trusses over two bays of the garage and vaulted trusses over the bay with the lift. The trusses and sheathing went up in a day with a crane and a few amigos that worked for a buddy of mine.
Click to expand...

My thought was that I was basically fabricating my own open tie truss in place.

I think this free span truss design is going to work though. We'll see what the truss company says.
 
Well, hopefully I'll be able to start on the storage area this week. I finally finished painting the hallway in the house that was halfway finished for months now. Now I feel better about working on my shop, and my wife is more supportive. :lol:
 
drkelly said:
I would still like to see a DIY job of raising the whole building up 4', and building new 4' walls below with sistered in studs, LOL.
Click to expand...

There are a couple of threads on one of the garage forums where people have done it. One guy sistered 2x4s all the way around the building. Looked like it sucked.
 
shawn said:
There are a couple of threads on one of the garage forums where people have done it. One guy sistered 2x4s all the way around the building. Looked like it sucked.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's where I got the idea. I think the free span truss is the way to go.

The other problem is if I add 4' of height to the shop, with the tall roof it is going to look HUGE.
 
Truss company came and did a field measurement Friday and seemed positive on the project. They should have some plans for me next week. On another note, i started working on the storage area in the back. I tore the old siding off, laid the backing, and started installing the ledger board.
 
Well, haven't heard back from the truss company yet, so not sure where this is going to fall. I did do a quick calculation on doing the work and realized that it came in close to half of what a new garage kit would cost. I am starting to lean the direction of just adding on a 20x26 expansion with a 12' ceiling in it. That way I won't need a 4-post lift any more either because I can keep both of my cars in the old shop and all my tools and 2-post lift and all in the expansion. Other than the cost of the concrete, it is close to a wash between the ceiling work and the new building kit.
 
Well, another update. Looks like things keep getting pared down. I sold both my lifts, @moldman05 made me an offer that I couldn't pass up, mostly because he was there to help me take them down and I wasn't going to have to unload those heavy suckers and store them at my house. So I've decided that the shop is going to stay as-is except for relocating one of the garage doors to the front side to have two doors in the front. I'll add on later, but for now I'm going to focus on getting this shop how I want it. I plan on sheetrocking it in, painting the floors, and organizing it nice. The end will be the storage area for my Trans Am and I'll be doing it really nice with checkerboard floor and all.

Honestly, I'm ready to just easily set it up how I want it and take some time to sit and relax. I've been going full steam in my life for over 10 years and finally have time to relax.
 
Instead of Sheetrock, look at T&G subfloor. I put 3/4” on the walls of my shop and painted it white with exterior semigloss. I can mount stuff wherever I want and not have to worry about finding a stud.
 
sgtbriangreen said:
Instead of Sheetrock, look at T&G subfloor. I put 3/4” on the walls of my shop and painted it white with exterior semigloss. I can mount stuff wherever I want and not have to worry about finding a stud.
Click to expand...

Interesting idea. I was going to use OSB and a translucent white/gray wash (looks cool, Google it) for mine, but the t&g sounds better (but marginally more $$).
 
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