Design Lee's Shop & Apartment

We bought some acreage back in January.

Everything in that red rectangle is our, grown up, swampy, slice of earth.

In the bottom right corner of that red rectangle, about 500' from the highway, and about halfway between what Google shows as the driveway and the eastern border, we're going to plant down a big metal building.  In a corner of that building we're going to put a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, apartment.

I've been getting quotes on metal buildings, I've called 4 places that have been recommended to us, and have one more to call.  Prices have been all over the place, and so far I've only got quotes on the metal building not anyone actually erecting it, or concrete, or plumbing, or electrical, or really anything else yet.  

The goal is to go big, I don't want to add on, and don't want to build another in the future.

Footprint of the metal building I've settled on is 60x100' with 16' eves, and a 4-12 pitch roof (standard around here is 1-12, we don't have snow).  We'll lose ~25x40' of a corner to the apartment, and with the taller eves and steeper pitched roof, I hope to have a lot of storage above the apartment.

I've selected continuous thickness columns, I don't want to deal with framing around or losing space to columns that get wider at the top.

I think I know what my overhead and walkthrough door arrangement is going to be, but I'm not sure what size I want all the overheads.  I do know I want the overhead doors to follow the roof line, and not go out into space over the bay.  I may do actual "roll-ups" if I can afford it.

I've got the building broken up into 4 interior bays, apartment and daily driver parking taking up one bay.  An exterior open bay, though I originally wanted that on the other end, I think I may do the same on both ends, effectively making the roof 150' long. 

The walkthrough doors in this wire frame aren't exactly where I want them, and there are way more windows in the apartment corner than we'll actually have.  I've included framing for vent fans in the gables on both ends.  I will of course heat and cool the apartment, but the open shop area will only be heated.  I'm seriously considering laying out pex for radiant before the slab is poured.

I've also got the option in the quote of adding a 15x30' lean-to along the bottom left corner of the 100' wall that's facing us in this projection.

I'd love to hear some thoughts, input, especially from anyone that's done something similar, or at least built a large-ish metal building.  Any words of wisdom, what do you like, what do you hate, anything you wish you would have done different?

I'm not sure on shop layout, and placement of things, but I'm thinking a pair of asymmetric 2 post lifts will go somewhere.  Jewels wants her own crafting and fab space.  We'll also need plenty of hooptie parking, and project/maintenance space.  From past experience I know I want to keep wood working and metal fab/welding as segregated as I can.

Verify with your lender that they are okay with giving you a loan on this type of building.  I like what you are planning and would love to have the same but the people who control the purse strings like "traditional" and "normal".  When things get outside of that definition they get nervous. 

In reply to John Welsh :

According to our loan officer when we purchased the land... as long as we've got windows, an exterior door, and some facsimile of a porch, we should be good.  We'll have flower beds/planters, so a porch should be easy.  Jewels won't like it, but we may do a brick facade to distinguish the living quarters from the shop.  We're not 100% sure, but we're close enough to sure of what we need at this point to justify getting quotes, to get an idea of how much money we're going to be borrowing.

We'd be living off of ramen and bologna, and it might not be 100% kosher, but there's potential to get the metal building in the dry, and build the apartment out of pocket.

Rural AR, there's no inspections to worry about, other than septic perk.  That's not a justification to half ass things, it just allows us the option to do things on our own time with less scrutiny. 

Congrats on the new purchase.

You're basically building a house inside of a conditioned warehouse so don't expect it to be $20/sqft like a basic barn. If you do the in slab heat, make sure the entire slab is well insulated underneath, and along the exterior edges or you'll lose a bunch of your heat to the ground and the outside air. Slab will be expensive with all of that material and labor + PEX + plumbing/septic rough in, etc so prepare yourself.

Foam insulation (either spray foam or rigid foam boards) in the walls will really kill any drafts that are common with these types of buildings. Stopping that air movement makes a huge difference in the way it feels inside and will allow any other insulation to work more efficiently. Cellulose insulation in the ceiling will be the cheapest R value/$, but may take more time/effort than insulation blankets and things that are often sold with a metal building.

When shopping for quotes, provide as many detailed specifications as possible so you can be sure that you're comparing "apples to apples" quotes.

Mndsm said:

Actually LOLd

bigdaddylee82 said:

I've been getting quotes on metal buildings, I've called 4 places that have been recommended to us, and have one more to call.  Prices have been all over the place, and so far I've only got quotes on the metal building not anyone actually erecting it, or concrete, or plumbing, or electrical, or really anything else yet.  

Make sure you're providing enough information to the contractors so they are all bidding on the same thing, and your quotes are comparing apples to apples.

There are a few people over on the Garage Journal website who have built similar structures.  I guess they refer to them as a 'shouse' (shop+house).  This is a link to an older post, but it has a list of build threads for them that may be useful for reference.  https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=343334

Will the building be occupied full-time?  

I would be concerned about the open section.  Being in the middle of woods that is sort of an open invite for nesting critters off all sorts.  Keeping critters under control will be hard enough without giving them a nice, comfy staging area.

Otherwise, I am jealous.  This is more or less my dream, and as such I've thought of a few layouts.  

The main idea would be to have the apartment on the second floor with wood and metal shops below it.  You might need a higher building height for this.  

If the idea is to do much of the interior build-out yourself, add inside RV hook-ups to the plan, so you will have a reasonably comfortable place to live while working on the project. 

Great deal and a great project. Best of luck. 

We just did 2,200 sq feet 

metal building on our farm land. Guy did concrete slab. Rounded metal roof. Windows. Cost was $19,000

i need to add the “garage doors” next month 

inside is all hollow/open. 

Do yourself a favor and find out if you qualify for the USDA's NRCS programs that pay you to maintain your land. Specifically the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) has a program that can help you maintain the land. 

For example, we have 8 acres of farm field, and our county's NRCS' field office in Wisconsin paid almost $1800 an acre per year to seed for plants for pollinators. And they pay $1500 a year for maintenance cost. The contract is for 5 years and then you are free to do whatever with land. 

There are lots of programs for woodland too.

TLDR: NRCS gives you money. Talk to someone locally.

chandler said:

Mndsm said:

Actually LOLd

Me too, once I figured it out.  Then the joke was on me.  

I second checking out the NRCS.  They also maybe can give some guidance in regards to wetlands.  You don’t want to berkeley with wetlands.

Consider a third bathroom with access from the shop. I'd just enclose a toilet and a shower like some hotel rooms do and have the sink with nice hot water facing the shop. Never having to enter the "house" to clean up or use the restroom is a game changer. 

Other than that, think carefully about utility runs. Clumping the bathrooms/kitchen/water heater together as much as possible reduces your hot water runs and how much water you waste. Same with electrical runs and splitting power between the shop and house. Map everything out. Save that map. In fact, take pictures of the plumbing/electical runs before you seal up the walls. Troubleshooting in 30 years just got easier. 

Think about a clean/paint room or a dirty/fab room and how those will be created. A giant unbroken space has good and bad points. 

I find your ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

With a metal building, be aware that cell signal inside might be crap. Femtocells with external antennas could fix that. Also insulation is extra important as others have mentioned.

Make sure you run lots of cat7 cabling all over the place, it's cheap and very futureproof, can also carry video over HDMI.

In reply to RossD :

So, my day job is water quality research for our Land Grant University's Division of Ag.  We work with NRCS a lot, they've funded several of our grants, we're part of a Conservation Partnership with them and a few other agencies, and my salary is funded 50% through them.  Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm already on top of it.

Actually talking with some colleagues about clearing some of the overgrowth, mostly gum and birch.  We've got some pretty smart forest resource folks where I work.  I've got a line on a local outfit that may be interested in doing some clearing, and we may even be able to make a few bucks off of it.

As many of you have mentioned, working on layout for stub outs, electrical, etc. important, and is kind of where I'm at.  I pumped the brakes on the building quotes, because I need to figure a lot of stuff out still before final quote and pulling the trigger.

RossD said:

Do yourself a favor and find out if you qualify for the USDA's NRCS programs that pay you to maintain your land. Specifically the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) has a program that can help you maintain the land. 

For example, we have 8 acres of farm field, and our county's NRCS' field office in Wisconsin paid almost $1800 an acre per year to seed for plants for pollinators. And they pay $1500 a year for maintenance cost. The contract is for 5 years and then you are free to do whatever with land. 

There are lots of programs for woodland too.

TLDR: NRCS gives you money. Talk to someone locally.

Thank you for this