The Shop

It has had many names, but I like 'The Shop' best. It has been called 'The Barn', 'The Shed', 'The Taj Mahal', 'The Man House' and 'Vern's Folly'.

When we planned our new home I included a detached building to park my truck and a few toys in, as well as some room for storage and a work shop. I will readily admit that I got carried away, but at the time it seemed quite feasible. We made good money on our previous home and it was within our budget. Unfortunately, by the time we were ready to build, things had changed and we couldn't even afford the house we had designed.

So instead of having it built, I decided to build it myself. I hired the cement work done in the fall of 2006, about the time we moved in. Nothing else was done until May 0f 2007 when I started framing. With the help of my skid loader I was able to get the walls up and sheeted myself.
Brent and a neighbor, Gary Pfaffenberger, helped me set the trusses. From there it was me and the loader putting the roof on. Joel did help me put a few sheets on the roof on one of his stops. I finally got the thing shingled around the end of October last year.I took a rest from this job for most of the summer. I was busy planting lawns and trees and generally fighting weeds and pesky animals. Toward fall I found a couple of locals who agreed to stucco the exterior for me for a predetermined amount. It was agreed that I would purchase materials and pay them for their labor in three installments. I think it turned out to be a bigger job than they had anticipated, and perhaps they under-bid. They got the felt and wire wrapping on, all be it I had to do the high places for them. The cement coat went really slowly until it finally stopped all together. About a month ago one of the guys had some health problems and I haven't seen them since.
I finally decided I was going to have to finish the job so last week I started in again. I finished the cement coat in all the high places, then started the texture coat.

It certainly doesn't look as good as our home, but after all it is only a shop hidden in the trees. I hope to finish the texture coat this week, and perhaps get some overhead doors installed before winter really sets in. Wish me luck.