My New Project Shop/Apartment

[almcbri]

I have dreamed of having my own shop for a long time. My wife and I always thought it would be a good idea to find some land and build a garage with an apartment over it and then later on build a house on the property once we could save a little $.

We have decided to build a 40x80x12 metal building with a 25x40 2 bedroom apartment. I was originally going to build a loft apartment, but I don't care for stairs as we live on the 3rd floor right now.
It is a 5 acre lot right off of RT. 66.

Here is a couple of quick drawings my wife and I came up with. She is an architect and this took her all of an hour or so to create. I was pretty impressed with what she came up with. It will have a solid concrete room in the shop to hide out in from Tornadoes. She even through a picture of a 2 post lift, which I hope to eventually add in the future I am trying to come up with some good ideas.

We are going to do all the work ourselves. I have a buddy that is going to help me with the electric and another friend helping with HVAC. Coming from a family of contractors I will be bumming some equipment to get the job done. It won't be anything fancy. We are going to add laminate wood flooring, basic cabinets ect.