The new Farrington Garage/Shop build

[tommycomfort]

Alright, this has been a long time coming! Let me try to give a quick run down of the history that leads up to this thread. Basically, my wife and I decided to get back into the car hobby in 2002 after a 15 year absence (since high school). So, while I was in Northern California doing a National Guard communication school we decided to buy our current 66 Chevelle. Well, one thing led to another and we wanted a spot to store it and some parts cars so we bought a rental house with a two car detached garage on a one acre lot less than a mile from the subdivision where we lived. In 2003ish we built (myself, Deb and the kiddos) a new 28x44' two story shop on the back of the lot and have been working out of there ever since. The only real problem with that arrangement came when we bought a house and property 30 minutes away and moved into that in 2006. A lot has happened with the rental property over the years, but all that is important is that we finally sold it on contract back in April and that is allowing us to build our shop here at our house. Whew! lots of history in a reasonably short paragraph.

OK, so this will be the build thread of building the shop. Deb and I have some building experience and will be doing most of the work ourselves with the exception of the foundation and maybe a few other things that will just save time and headaches in the long run. Obviously family and friends will be helping too as we move forward.

We're doing a build thread on lateral-g.net, pro-touring.com and chevelles.com since we have good friends on all of them. Although I frequent lateral-g and have a ton of friends on here, this will really be our first "build" thread...

We would love to hear your questions and comments on what you would do to make it a better shop, but remember, we are regular people with regular jobs (a couple each) and at the end of the day, we want this thing to be under roof and usable inside of our budget. Just like everything else we do, we will make improvements as we go.

Here are the basics:
40x76'
stick framed 2x6" walls 12' ceilings in the main work area
40x26 area that will be sectioned off for machine and wood shop, storage and a paint area
40x26 upstairs that will be used for storage and possible future living area
two lifts, one two post and one four post
one 16x9' overhead door and one 36" service door
electric and wood heat (A/C is part of my dream plan)

The hand drawn plans




Just breaking ground




Sam walking the dug footer

[Rick D]

Very nice Tom, great size as well! Good luck with the new project. One thing that I would consider is either another overhead door or increasing the height of the door, you never know when you want drive in a monster truck to work on??

[tommycomfort]

Originally Posted by Rick D

Very nice Tom, great size as well! Good luck with the new project. One thing that I would consider is either another overhead door or increasing the height of the door, you never know when you want drive in a monster truck to work on??

Thanks Rick! I know the print shows a 16x8' but we are upping that to 9'. Any vehicle taller than that we'll have to just take the wheels off of... Right now with our 8' doors at the current shop we can back the trailer in with a car on it so that was our goal again with a little more room for something taller.

[65_LS1_T56]

Very cool to see you posting it here Tom. First I had tire envy and then motor envy after driving the 66, now shop envy

Looking forward to seeing it in a few weeks

[coolwelder62]

Congrat's,Tom to you and the rest of amazing Farrington Clan.I hope the weather is holding out for you guy's.I wish you guy's were closer I would love to come put my hammer swinging skill's to use.Kevin and I may come to Indy GoodGuy's if so see you then.

[Vince@Meanstreets]

thats awesome, all that property must be nice to play on. Good luck to you.

[tommycomfort]

Originally Posted by 65_LS1_T56

Very cool to see you posting it here Tom. First I had tire envy and then motor envy after driving the 66, now shop envy

Looking forward to seeing it in a few weeks

Yeah yeah, I dig your shop too! And, I think Jill is willing to pull the trigger on a shop expansion for you too.

[groovyjay]

I like what you are doing. I'm going to start building a new shop next spring and have it finished by the end of summer.

This has been a huge inspiration for me:

http://www.bcsportbikes.com/forum/sh...s-I-don-t-even.....

[DOOM]

Looks awesome! I just in Mooresville going to JONES auto salvage!

[tommycomfort]

Somehow I keep thinking that I am doing pretty good with updates, but apparently I fell behind again. Work has been demanding but we're still making pretty decent progress. All our car projects need attention, but the buyer of our former shop indicated that he will soon have the remainder of the money and want it sooner than later so it's thrash time to get this place under roof.


We left Goodguys Indy early on Sunday so we could get home and get some work done. The last of the wall construction was building the two 4' walls on each side of the garage door and install the header. We used our John Deere to lift the header to 8' (max lift of the bucket) while Sam and I lifted each end the remaining foot. All was well until we shoved the last side in. Even though I had never done it before, I used construction adhesive in the pockets and that made things very slippery. Well... As we were shoving the second side in, the first side slid out and bounced out of the tractor bucket and smashed the hood of the poor John Deere. Also glanced off Sam's head, but he's fine. After we all settled down we were able to install it with a few more safety measures in place.