House/shop attached

Jacksonwolf39 · Dec 9, 2015

I didn't know if there was a previous thread related to this, but I couldn't find one. Well I'm getting ready to get my first place. Rig is gone and I reckon it's time to do it. So shooting for this spring. I don't really care to get a starter home that I will only be in for 5 years. So I've been kicking around the idea of building the shop I want and putting an apartment type deal on the side of it. I've done found a couple acres I like. Build that then down the road when I'm ready build the house I want. My idea is a 30x50 shop 14'-16' side walls with drive through doors. And around a 900-1000 square foot apartment deal attached to it. Was just curios if any of you guys have done this or know anyone that has just to get a few ideas. I will be able to cut labor cost way down because me and my dad will do it with the help of a few friends.

Thanks in advanced!

paradisepwoffrd · Dec 9, 2015

Re:

I have thought about this same thing alot & there was another thread about it.

I would make the walls extra tall and build the living area upstairs in part of the shop. Then leave a tall ceiling in the other side for a lift.

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Jtremor · Dec 9, 2015

I built a shop/apartment on my family's land. It's 35x40 with 10 foot walls. The apartment is 650sq ft and the shop is 750 sq ft. It's just me, so it's perfect for me. It's nicer than any apartment I had in the past. The only thing I would change is the taller sidewalls like you are wanting.

hokie_yj · Dec 10, 2015

Re: House/shop attached

This is my shop/house. I bought it already built and finished. If I was building it I'd probably do a few things differently, but over all I love it!

It's a 30'x100' pole barn. One section is 30'x45' with 8' walls. That's the house section. It has 2 bedrooms, an office that could be made into another bedroom, (it's currently my gun room), one bath, utility room, living room, nice kitchen, a decent sized living room.

The other section is 30'x55' with 10' walls which is the shop. If was building it myself I would have built the walls taller and laid the doors out different, but it was built as a woodworking shop by a retired machinist.

Ignore the fact that it looks like a bomb went off in the shop right now. It's cleaner than it was last week when I had the tow rig in here too putting a new manifold and turbo on it.

giles45shop · Dec 10, 2015

I've got two friends who did something similar, executed two different ways. One of the guys built a two story structure (~ 30 x60) where the bottom floor was the shop section with two ~ 12' wide roll-up doors on each of the 30' wide ends and a regular 3' walk door near one end on the 60' side with 12' ceilings. The shop also had a small bathroom area.It had an exterior stairway up to the second floor on the 60' side with covered porch/landing deck. The second story was an 1800 ft2 house with 2 bedrooms, 1 baths. Bottom floor was block construction with stucco, the second story was wood frame with vinyl siding. It worked very well for him, and as his family the just converted the downstairs into additional living area and moved to "shop" to another separate building.

My other friend has his set-up on a large acreage as this is basically his hunting camp. He relocated a 50 x 100 steel building (~ 20-24' high) to the property and then walled in ~25' of one end to make a 25x50 two bedroom one bath "apartment". You walk into the shop through the one of the large bay doors (3 per each long side of the building) and there's a regular 3' door where you walk into the apartment. The apartment has hardwood floors, the cathedral ceiling is all wood (sanded, varnished), and walls are drywall with a lot of wood trim. It has a stone fireplace located on the exterior wall and the shower is stone as well. On the exterior wall next to the fireplace is another walk door which will take you outside if the bay doors were closed or you didn't want to go through the shop. It's absolutely amazing beautiful and well-done, but I'm sure it wasn't cheap given all of the wood, stone and attention to detail, but gives you an idea of what you can do. In addition, it's actually off the grid with a large generator since they have not yet run power to it. The electrical system in the apartment is set up with LED lights, etc. to minimize usage and multiple circuits where you can run certain circuits off battery power when the generator is not running.