(My Mama told me) You better shop around

It hardly feels right that I should write this post, as I was not actually present for the entire process, but I will do my best (with some outside assistance). Getting the shop up was our second priority out here (after having water, having a place to put all of our stuff, have the cats, and keep ourselves warm, sheltered, etc. while the house is built is pretty imperative), but it was a big job and took much more than expected to get it done.

We got the plans from the building fabricator and took them to the city. Everything seemed to be fine with that, until we found out that we couldn't build a shop without a house being present on the site. What the planner did not tell us was that we COULD use the exact same plans to build a "agricultural building." But not a "shop." Bureaucrats. Permit in hand, we set out to build a concrete slab.

Now, this was a rather precise procedure, as the bolts (to which the rest of the building is attached) needed to be set in just the right spots in the concrete. The concrete contractor assured us that he had built these buildings before. Ten days later (and two visits from the city inspector), we started to doubt his assertion. When we asked about the placement of the bolts and he said "what bolts?" that clinched it. Eventually, the slab was poured, although we weren't sure if the building would work with the bolts, as Tres and his father had to do the placement themselves.

Now, we just needed the building. Tres had arranged for a local business to send a guy over with a forklift to get the building off of the truck. As the day in question arrived, however, the truck driver informed us that it would be arriving after business hours. So, with three hours until the building arrived, we had no way to get it off of the truck. After a lot of running around, we walked up to a neighbor we'd never met and asked to borrow his forklift. Also, would he be available to drive it (take Tres' word that an 8000 pound forklift is a scary thing to drive for the uninitiated)? Needless to say, our neighbor saved our sorry selves. The next day, we started to work on the metal frame for the building. While it was a bit scary getting the metal arches in place, the job went pretty quickly with three guys, a materials lift, and some scaffolding.

After that, it was several days of wood framing.

Next, came the siding.

first wall sided

Then, the roof: insulation, then sheeting.

insulating the roof

putting on the roof

The finishing touches, which I did not photograph independently, were the metal framing on the edges and doors and the installation of the doors themselves.

The hard-working folks you see in the photos above include my father-in-law, a good friend, my sister-in-law's boyfriend, and my father (in addition to Tres, of course). They worked very long days in extremely warm weather to get this done quickly and, while this is hardly adequate, I want to again express my profound thanks and admiration for their work. This was, at times (all the time?), a very unpleasant (Tres adds that it seemed to be unpleasant only when he wasn't there) job and you did it so well. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Particular note should go to the two pictured below, who lived out here and worked every day on this throughout the entire process, despite what could easily have become a very claustrophobic situation and scorpion denizens (to be discussed further in another post).

our intrepid builders in front of the finished product