Mike’s One Man Shop

When I went into business back in 1993 I had to move from my 8×10 shop in the back yard to a space I rented for $350 a month. I had recently gotten an order from Leichtung workshops for 440 of my Intarsia Project kits. The space I rented was a 750 sq. ft metal building in the middle of an industrial park and I knew that I didn’t want to stay there forever. The kits sold well for several years but it turned out to be a seasonal thing with the most sales being between October through March. I was still working my full time job as an electrician foreman doing commercial work in grocery stores and shopping centers so the rental space would sometimes not really pay for itself during the slack months.I would still go to the shop and draw new patterns and make new kits for the next season and build a few pieces of furniture, all the while honing my woodworking skills and techniques. I decided that the time had come to find a place to call my own if I was to continue with the woodworking. I began making a list of all the things that I would like to include in a new shop. I wanted to be able to build it myself relying on the experience that I gained from building log homes in North Carolina. When I grew up in Maine I loved the spaciousness of old barns that we used to play in as kids so I wanted to build a timber framed structure. I didn’t want a concrete floor because of back and knee ailments associated with years of working on concrete floors doing electrical work plus I wanted the crawl space to run the electrical and dust collection under the floor.I also wanted high ceilings and an upstairs for extra storage space.The place that we found to build the shop was for sale and the location was perfect. A 2300 sq. ft ranch on 1.3 acres at the end of a cul-de-sac with wetlands to the left and RR tracks behind and 2 empty lots to the right that wouldn’t perk Perfect!!. We bought the house but because of county ordinances I was limited as to the size of the footprint that the shop could be so I designed it to be 20’x 38’ which was smaller than I wanted but I could make bigger by having the second floor. I drew up some plans and specs for the county and all went well. So here is the pictorial sequence of the building of Mike’s One Man Shop. I started by building a scale model.

The model really helped during the material take-off of what was needed to build the shop.

I laid out the footings and rented a mini-backhoe to do the digging.

Big Day—pouring the footings. Hope I measured everything right

Free bricks, free sand and free mortar. I laid off the piers the old school way– using a water level. First time I laid brick but had seen it done plenty of times. Not rocket science!!

One of the challenges of building a timberframe structure was finding a reliable source for all of the timbers at a good price and having them cut on a schedule that suited my needs. I saw an ad in a local paper that advertised—lumber for sale for barns and sheds,custom cut,will deliver. I gave the man a call and told him what I was building and as it turned out he lived about 10 minutes from me and that he could mill everything I needed for the shop at a very reasonable price—.50bd ft for SYP,and .60 bd ft for oak. Wow what a deal. I ordered all of the girders for the floor system—6” x 8” x 8’and 10’ oak

Unloading first shipment of oak timbers

After finishing all of the piers (21) each with a 1/2 “anchor bolt,termite flashing and PT sill plate I began fitting the girders with a 1/2 lap joint using my Trusty Jonsereds 49SP chain saw.

Setting girders with help from son #1

Making good progress

After getting all of the main girders in place I began to put in the 4” x 6” SYP floor joists using ledger strips and spikes

Nailing down the floor with help from FIL and son # 2

I encountered many challenges while building my shop. For one , I was still working full time at my electrical job and working out of town alot so I could only work on the shop during the weekends. Plus I was still processing orders for intarsia kits at the rental shop which meant that my building time was limited to night work. With very limited time it took many months to get anything done. Setting the 6×6 posts was no problem but hoisting the 6×8 beams was a real challenge working by myself. So I fabricated a small crane from an old grocery cart, a couple of pulleys, a boat winch and a 15’ hickory tree. Now I was able to do all of the cutting and notching on the beams and hoist them into position without any help.

Using my boat winch crane to set a beam.

After many months I managed to get the first floor framed up and with the watchful eye of my supervisor got the stairway installed to the second floor.

After putting down the deck for the second floor loft I began setting the posts for the roof.

Because of the way I built the first crane I had to make a more portable crane to do the lifting of the beams and rafters for the second floor.

Installing the roof supports

Done with the crane on the second floor.

Well I may be jumping the gun a little but I got my first load of 1×8 rough sawn SYP siding and the 1×3 batten strips so just had to see what it was going to look like. I ordered the Ondura roofing material so I got time to do other things until it comes in.The front porch PT is done so lets do the siding.

Me and son #2 working on the rear roof supports

The Ondura roofing finally came in so that takes priority now. I chose this roofing material over a metal roof mainly because of the oak trees with the huge acorns that would jump the **** out of me on a metal roof.

Roof is done

Back to the siding—getting tricky now!

Well I have made and installed all of the windows and doors and this is the last piece of siding to complete the dry-in.

My shop is now dried in and now it’s time to get the inside work done. I have installed all of the lighting, using 8’-2 tube fluorescents that I salvaged from a grocery store remodel and have put all the lights on motion sensors. All of the outlet circuits are in conduit run under the floor and are stubbed up where needed.The 200 amp service is installed and powered up with plenty of space for future needs. The lumber racks are done and the miter saw station is complete. I decided to install hardwood flooring in the work area and found oak flooring for a dollar a sq. ft. Not the best but the price was right.

Installing the floor—nothing hi-tech about this.

Once the floor was installed, I did have to fill in knot holes with a mixture of epoxy and sawdust.

I rented a floor sander to sand it down before applying the finish.

I built the railings for the loft and the stairway and was ready for my final building and electrical inspections.

Looking into the shop from the front door

I built this shop over a 3 year period at a cost of $10,000 for all materials, but there is still always work to be done in Mike’s One Man Shop.