I call this my "Uber" shop. From "uber geek". Essentially a "dream shop", or what I think I really need for a shop. It was imaginary for the longest time, and sometimes I still don't believe it's actually in place. Some people have commented that I should have built the house first... However, a man has to have priorities. Besides, with a shop, a house is easy to build.

I built my last shop myself. And while I'm sure I could have done this one, I decided to pay someone to build it instead. National Barn was the winner of the bidding war. And after having my materials sit on the ground for a month, the eventually sent a crew out. This crew walked around a bit, threw some cigarette butts on the ground, and proclaimed it to muddy to work. Damned lazy Americans. I called up National Barn and told them to send me some Mexicans with rubber boots.

Which is exactly what they did. Minus the rubber boots. Actually, I was quite impressed with the crew Carlos had, and they didn't even laugh at my crappy spanish.

Here I am helping them put the trusses up.

Starting to look like a barn.

Slab foundation. Cross trenches are to tie the edges and the building to the slab, to make a matte slab, also called a "floating foundation".

I made the door big enough to back a cement trunk on purpose. Denver and his crew did an OK job. They poured to wet, cut the insulation while troweling, and didn't get the floor perfectly smoot (or level for that matter). And Denver charged more then twice what he should have. I don't think I will use them again...