The 'Swiss Army knife' of buildings???

[chevdog]

Maybe I haven't paid my CBN bill this month? [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

Happy to help along with the other good info that you have received. I'll see if I can get some pics sent too. Would you please try to send me an email again with some type of mailing address? Some of the info I'm not sure will scan very well plus I may add a couple more sketches here and there.

If the CBN email link fails, please try classicfab@hotmail.com.

[slowzuki]

Interesting thread, planning on doing the same thing. No plans of wrecking it after the house as it would make a nice office or guest room?

[Gary_in_Indiana]

My plan is to clear it of most of the interior walls I would put in and just make it a heated shop with a full bath, office and some type of wash tub/sink. With that in mind, I'm trying to come up with plans that will keep all my plumbing on one outside wall (preferably in one corner) and very few interior walls outside of those for the bath and master bedroom (later 'office'), which will remain. Any other walls would come out when I cease to need it as living space so as to open it up for other uses like welding, woodworking and vehicle maintenance.

[slowzuki]

Sounds good Gary. There are many advantages to this approach I think! We will end up with well heated and insulated shops (or at least office!) with running water, this stuff always seems to be the last priority when building a later shop.

I'm trying to think of any good ideas to add, hmm, put the room on a south side, at least here up north! Sound isolated box for the air compressor, I know I've got a pile of them written down in my notes.

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] We just built a shop from an existing grainery/barn and THIS TIME I made separate rooms for tools, for parts, and for equipment. The main shop floor area has NO bolt bins, tool racks, or parts storage. By having the separate rooms I can enclose them better so my stuff stays cleaner; we can illuminate them better because we only need the lighting when we are actually IN THERE rummaging around for stuff; and we can LOCK the tool room separately with a super-secure door. Our furnace-air conditioner-compressor-hot water boiler room is heavily insulated and we can barely hear the compressor. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[Golfgar4]

Hi Gary!

I don't know how much this might help, but here's a link Living In the Barn? to a thread I posted in TBN about pretty much the same idea you have. A lot of the discussion is in line with what you're talking about.

Check it out. You might find something useful! [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]