Building a new shop

[Jordan Baker]

Hey all

I figured I should do up a thread on what I’ve been up to this past year. I’ve been pretty quiet on the forum and the vehicles have taken a bit of a back seat. For the past few years I’ve talked and talked about wanting a new shop. My old shop had a lot of character, being that it had been a century barn that had been dismantled and rebuilt around the time of the First World War. The other portion (red shed) was equally as old and had been in place since the 1920’s. Prior to that it had been a cheese factory on the other side of town. Anyway, back to today. The building had seen better days, my wife was worried it would come down on me one day in a windstorm and she also wanted some indoor parking. Although I always told her with so many holes in the walls and roof the wind just blows through. She had none of that and wanted a new shop built, even before we renovated the kitchen..have I said she is a keeper….


Many hours were spent coming up with ideas and sizes/layout and what my needs were and could be in the future. I settled on a 50’x36’ deep layout with 12’ high walls. I also wanted a second floor and a gambrel roof line to keep it in character of the old barns in our area. I took my ideas to a local engineering firm and went over what I was thinking and a few weeks later I had some stamped plans drawn up. I highly recommend using a firm like that. Namely you get stamped drawings and secondly they know and work with the municipal building department already. In January I applied for my building permit and a few weeks later it came back I needed a variance. The size of building both in foot print and height was larger then what the zoning allowed for. However since I already had a building and the new one was 200sq feet larger and 6’ taller it was an easy but slow process of going to a committee of adjustment meeting. However this added months of idle waiting to the process. By the end of May the variance was approved and then I had to wait 20days for anyone to object. Once that was over it was another 10 days until I had my permit.

During this waiting period I was busy ordering product and getting supplies staged. I also decided I was going to try and do most of the work myself with help from some of the guys I’m on the fire department with.

I hired my friend with his excavation company to do the demolition and foundation digging. With two days warning that he was coming it was a mad dash to get the shop fully emptied. He filled two huge bins with the barn and also peeled off all the metal and put it in a separate bin.