The Workshop, part 3

A few patient friends have expressed interest in seeing the workshop progress…so at long last, here are some more pictures for you!  If you missed Part 1, click here.  For Part 2, click here.

The last picture I left you with was this one…the structure was basically complete, except there were no shingles on the roof.  And just so you know…I helped put the tar paper on the roof!  It gets HOT up there!

One of the next things we tackled (“we” meaning my good friend Michael J. and myself) was to finish putting the exterior trim up.  As I mentioned before, we used Hardie cement/fiber siding to cover the building.  They sell 5 1/2” matching “battens,” but that was wider than I wanted to use (except on the corners), so we ripped each batten in half (you need a GOOD table saw and a carbide blade to do this).

Here’s the before…

…and here’s the after!  It has a lot more character, don’t you think?

Around this same time, I hired professional roofers to come finish the shingling.  I decided it was not something for a rank amateur to tackle!

Can you guess why this is such a sad picture?  Well, that is as far as the crane would stretch!  They couldn’t put the pallet of shingles directly on the roof, so the poor guys had to huff them up the ladder under their own power.

Trust me on this…packages of shingle are monstrously heavy!

But isn’t it looking pretty??

One thing to note…we had originally purchased shingles from Lowe’s with the idea that my contractor friend would install them.  When he had to leave before that happened, I called a roofing company.  Their price for shingles was significantly better, which helped to pay for the metal sheeting on the soffit…

…and the facia…

…so I think it worked out well in the end!  It means a lot less exterior painting, now and forever!

Another exterior project that had to be done was to pour a concrete “landing” outside the man-door.  Apparently it is part of the building code.  Who knew? 

So we (this is Michael J. and I again) built a form out of some scrap wood…

…filled it with some leftover gravel, and even a little rebar (it was on sale).

Here’s the gratuitous shot of concrete drying.  And here’s another word of advice…DON’T trust the on-line concrete calculators that are supposed to tell you how many bags of reddi-mix you need!  Buy twice as much.  It will save you a frantic trip to Lowe’s in the middle of lunchtime traffic!

Don’t laugh…but I had to autograph it!

So the exterior of the shop is basically complete.  We still need to pour a concrete pad outside the garage door, and a sidewalk to connect it to the front of the house.  That is hopefully going to happen later this month! 

And I haven’t tackled the exterior caulking and painting yet.  Anybody want to come help me with that?

Except…I did have to paint the door. 

                           

Naturally, it had to be red!  

Yes…there’s still more to come!  Next time…the interior!