A Man's Gotta Have a Shop

When we moved to Utah from Washington in 2005, Bruce seriously mourned the loss of his 24 by 36 foot shop, pictured above-- just under 900 square feet. This shop had served him well for 15 years and was the source of more projects than I could begin to name. It now provides storage for a boat, a 1974 Volkswagen Beetle, lapidary equipment, some of our kids' belongings, and a wide variety of tools and building materials, just waiting to be put to good use. (The white stripes on the roof, incidentally, are made of baking soda and their purpose is to kill and hopefully prevent moss ((only in western Washington)) -- that's a hint from a neighbor and we hope it works!) The shop sits on 2.5 acres, and with that much land, it's pretty unobtrusive.

The move to Utah, to a house that sits on less than a third of an acre, posed an interesting challenge to a man accustomed to (spoiled by?) a big shop. Bruce set to work to remedy that situation, and managed to purchase additional land from our next door neighbor, a 21 foot-wide strip from the front of our property to the back. This land acquisition took some time, as did the planning, designing, acquiring a civil engineer's approval of his plans and the necessary permits, and tearing down the existing storage shed (including breaking up the 20 by 22 foot concrete floor, wait till I show you what he did with the concrete) -- but that's all done now and construction is underway. The new shop is an L-shape and adds up to 1428 square feet. Before he began building, Bruce spray painted the outline of the shop on the ground. I was appalled at it's size and proximity to the house, and said so. He asked, "Do you think I should make it smaller?" and I answered "Yes!" His response: "I'm not going to." :-)

Bruce seems to love to do all kinds of building projects outdoors in extreme weather -- at least he's done it often enough, and this new shop construction is no different. He began excavating and pouring concrete in late fall last year, borrowing insulated blankets and strategically placing space heaters to prevent the ground and the fresh concrete from freezing (the lowest temperature he battled was a bitter 17 below zero!).