Of all the concrete work I have done over the years, I consider this walk to be my biggest failure. It was too hot, I ordered too stiff a mix, and just could not get it skreeded as smoothly as I like before troweling. Still has trowel marks in it. Oh well, at least it is just a workshop and not my residence.

Apparently, it is still smooth enough to ride a bike on. That's one of my twin grandsons. I remember posting on here when they were born. Can't believe they are seven years old already.

How much is concrete per yard in Oklahoma?

This is where it really gets interesting. You saw earlier where I had to cut off the bottoms of all the studs (after building a temporary wall to hold the roof up) and have a mason rebuild the brook stem wall.

I was thinking I would be doing the same thing with the next two thirds of the wall. I was wrong.

This middle section was even less stable than the West 1/3 of the wall. Even before removing tin, there were sections I could swing in and out about 6 to 8 inches. I knew the studs were rotten; I didn't know how bad the stem wall was.

There was a small bathroom in this area. I decided to demo the whole thing. Poor construction, and not enough room for a deep sink. Sorry, did not take pics of the bathroom area before and after. Good news is demo is fast and relatively easy. Bad news? It was mostly what was holding things up on that part of the wall.

First pic is the toilet flange. You can see how bad the wood is on the wall. Most of the studs had already been sistered; and not very well.

Second pic is just outside where the toilet flange is. You can see the brick stem wall down there.... about a foot below grade. There was nothing bigger than a tooth pick left from the bottom sill plate it was so rotten. A few studs were just sistered directly onto the stem wall with no sill plate. At first I thought about just getting more brick and building it up even higher. But, the farther East we went the farther below grade the stem wall was, so that ruled out just building it up.

Time to get creative. Stay tuned.

Below that brick stem wall is a huge concrete footer. I don't know how deep, but at least another two foot below the brick. So, I decided the brick wasn't even that important. After sawing off the bottoms of all the studs, and removing some more tin (for room to work) we just hit each brick with a baby sledge; if it moved we took it out. When we got down to all solid brick, we just built an 18 inch wide form around it that was two inches taller than the inside slab. I made it the exact same height as the retaining wall that we put between the warehouse side and the workspace side. I drilled four 5/8 holes in the retaining wall and ran 5/8 rebar (#5 to you guys who know the lingo) out of that wall and into what would be the new concrete stem wall. We ran the rebar x 4 the entire length. Also tied into the concrete that is the drive under the east 12 x 12 door). That concrete is over 10 inches thick, and I didn't want to try busting it out.

First pic shows my second temporary wall (covers the middle third). Second pic I call three sisters. It is where someone had tried to sister studs.... twice. But they were still rotted. You can't put wood below grade and expect it to survive.

Next few pics are of the wall right after it was poured. For only the second time ever, I under estimated the amount of concrete. Had to make a run to the hardware store and buy 8 more bags to mix by hand. Ugh. I hate mixing concrete in a wheel barrel.

Last pic shows where I cut out the hideous concrete around the old toilet flange. It was horribly uneven. And besides, I needed a place to bring city water into the building. Did I ever tell you about my water supply? I really can't remember. Well, it is just a pex line running from a building four lots over through a chain link fence, then through a hole punched in my South wall (drilled really, not punched... the wall is solid brick and mortar, 19 inches thick) then snaking around to the shop over to the bathroom. We send the guy $20 every few months so we have water. Well, I got the City to put in a water meter and run City water to the North side of my building... but that's another story.

Anyway, that gray pipe you see sticking up is 2 inch conduit for the new City water line to come through. I ran a 6 inch conduit for the sewer line. The old sewer line just ran on top of the dirt and was partially exposed. Nice.

Got that wall poured. Notice the giant stakes holding the forms in place. 18 inch thick concrete builds up a lot of pressure when you are pouring and poorly reinforced form walls are a disaster waiting to happen. So I made stakes out of 2x4. Really took a lot to pound them in this rocky soil. Several layers of gravel, some asphalt and who knows what else. Many of them, I had to put a 20 inch masonry bit on the hammer drill and drill down just to make a hole to get the stake started. I am thinking I need Super Dave to come visit for a weekend, so we can knock this out.

Notice the gap in the anchors near the east end. Decided to install a pedestrian door there. Until now, you could only get into the building via a garage door.

This gives you an idea how bad the rot was. I had to cut 8 feet off the bottom of the studs in this section.

Guess I misplaced the camera about this time, as I have very few pics from this point on.

We still had a sliding door in the 12 x 12 entrance. Really heavy. The roof sagged about 4 inches above that door. I jacked up one end and built a temp frame for the West end of that door. You can see where I have four 2x6's screwed together, with a latch to accept the door lock. Obviously, the building is VERY susceptible to a break in. Fortunately, you can throw a rock and hit the police station. I would go by from time to time and ask the local constabulary to keep an eye on the place with an extra patrol each night. So far, so good.

First pic is the door brace from the outside; second from the inside. Last pic is of the new stem wall with the form removed. Notice I left all the 2x4 stakes out in the drive area. Figured to use them to reinforce the sidewalk form for the next step.

I can't find very many pics of the new stem wall after removing the forms. Probably on Sherri's phone. Here is one showing just the edge. Speaking of edges, it will probably be "on edge" rotated 90 degrees. Almost always happens when I transfer from my phone. I get them oriented correctly on my computer, but when I post, they come out 90 degrees off. BTW, I never could have done this without that scissor lift. What a life saver.

Had to wait for the plumber to rough in the toilet flange and vent stack before pouring the sidewalk and the small piece of slab for the bathroom.

It was about this time that we had some 80 mph winds come through and blow off about 1/3 of my modified torch down bitumen roof. Fortunately, insurance picked up the tab. Replaced that part of the roof with TPO. Really nice product. Almost makes me wish the wind had taken off all of it.

Wow. A lot of work there. Nice job your doing. I saved my moms 1.5 garage when I started the trade, I remember how much work that was, your project is huge.

Congrats on getting all of that done, it's going to be killer when it's done.

And that's a great story about the old water line, lol, just throwing the guy $20 every month or so. Hilarious.

I can't take credit for that one. It was that way when we bought it. The guy I bought it from owns the other building that has been supplying my water. I knew I was going to have to pay for a water meter and water line.

Looking good!

That little blue pex line sticking up out of the ground? That's my new water line. About 110 foot from the building.

The plumber had to dig through a lot of asphalt and gravel to get it to the building. Good thing I have my dump truck (the 49 Studebaker) as he needed a boat load of sand to bury the pipe in; couldn't put all the gravel and rocky soil back on it.

Making some serious progress now.

Got the 400 amp service meter and panel set in. Electrician pulled 500 nmn cables on Saturday. Each cable is one inch in diameter.

I have the bath, kitchenette, broom closet and utility closet all framed out. Did 2x6 construction with 3/4 plywood on top so I can store stuff up there.

Have water to the building, but waiting on the plumber to finish running everything inside.

Latest pics I have, but these are over a month old. I will have time to catch up on the thread with more pics, as I am having my second shoulder joint replacement surgery tomorrow. Had the left one done in Jan, so this is the right one. Not looking forward to doing everything left handed for the next 6 to 12 weeks. I was able to type a little after just a week last time. We will see how it goes.

Figured 2020 already sucks so bad, that I may as well have BOTH shoulders done in the same year. What a way to start and finish.

Here is the 12.5 foot door on the East end of the North wall.

Dream shop!

Nice progress.

I forgot how red the soil is out there in OK....

Nice Lynn!

I could not have done this without my angel of a wife helping me out every step along the way.

She has helped me trench for perforated drain lines, build forms for concrete, pour concrete, frame walls and every other part of this. I am married to an angel.

Well, I just spent over an hour reading this whole "adventure". I must say, you are one determined man. I would have run away, crying, after the well discovery and rain.
I've had a few lemons thrown my way over the years and am just winding down on remodeling a 24x45 pole building for heat with insulation and an overhead door conversion from sliders and I feel like I had a walk in the park with my shop.
That building is very lucky you came along and saved it. It's going to be a very nice place to work on automobiles next summer for you.
Hope your surgery goes well tomorrow and you are able to get some semblance of normal routine back quickly.

Lynn, best of luck with your surgery.

Isn't it great being married to the right person ? I have her sister. My wife has spent hundreds of hours helping transform my building too. She drives the forklift (which is 56 yrs old and a manual trans) while I did high work on the truss mods for the overhead door, helped put up 48" wide x 6" deep wall insulation, ceiling tin, fed well over 150 bales of compressed ceiling insulation into the shredder/blower, etc, etc.

Hi Lynn, looks great! Hope the surgery goes well.



Hoping we can meet up next April, too!:headbang:

It has been a long haul with the building and shoulder restoration's. Hope you can start to have some quality car time in there ASAP :biggthumpup:
Mike

Been a long time since I updated this. Almost TWO FREAKIN YEARS!!!!

I really am still working on this shop. My museum project is taking about 20 hours a week for BOTH me and Sherri, so time is tight. See: publishingmuseum.org.

Last spring I built four little rooms on the warehouse side; small utility room for my water heater, a bathroom, kitchenette, and finally a broom closet.

I don’t even remember if I posted this, but I put in a non load bearing wall between the warehouse side and the shop side. Split almost evenly; 2700 feet each side. The warehouse side will get “smaller” as my son and his wife are taking about 800 feet creating a small wood working shop. It will be pretty well equipped with table saw, compound miter saw, band saw, lathe, spindle sander, scroll saw and two dust extraction units. I have plenty of spare breakers on the HUGE breaker box that a good friend GAVE me. I checked the price on line, and it would have cost me close to $3k. It was left over from a huge commercial job he handled (casino). He was retiring and said he would never use it.

Took me over a year to convince OG&E to provide 400 amp service with 3 phase, but finally got there. The four wires coming into the breaker box are each 1 inch in diameter.

Hired a great guy to do all my electrical, as I had to have a licensed electrician pull the permit. Took him 6 hours to get those wires pulled in and turn a 180 to get them to the top of the box.

He and I worked about 8 weekends getting power everywhere we needed.

Had to run city water. Someone at the City must like me, as they didn’t even charge me to set a meter!!!!

Pics are of the four little rooms. They look better now. Kitchenette has a beer fridge and a micorwave. Had a leftover piece of granite that I cut myself with a gas powered concrete saw. My son was giving me grief for using granite in a warehouse. I told him it was free; if he could get me a formica counter top cut to size for the same price, I would forego the granite.

More to come. Really getting close, so need to post some more updates of this adventure before I am ready for a grand opening.

Threw in a picture of one of the dated nails from the RR ties on the West side of the shop.

Remember the saga of the well, then the man hole cover?

Well, I still had some water intrusion issues as a result of the parking lot to the South sloping toward my shop. When it rained hard the water would rush in under the seal of the garage door.

I wish I had take a couple of before pics showing how I formed out a drainage system. But, you can see from these pics how the forms were down in the ground, with wood blocks place down the middle to hold the forms out (so the weight of the concrete wouldn’t push the forms in.

Sadly, non of the ready mix places would deliver concrete to anyone without a commercial account for about a year. So, I bought 62 80 pound bags and mixed it one bag at a time in a wheel barrow. Got it done in one afternoon.

This trough runs into a pipe that runs out the same wall as the sub floor drain. Yep, that means another trip to the rental place to get a 6 inch core bit and giant drill with water cooling. Drilled another six inch hole in that 13 inch thick retaining wall. I am getting too old for this chit.

I did clean up the edge with a concrete saw and spread a little gravel there.

But, no more water issues (well, a little, but new gutters on the South side cured that).

Lynn, always enjoy the updates on your shop. A labor of love for sure.

The drain grate looks great !! That was a lot of work for a guy your age...:cool2:

I'll say to you what I often hear..."you do a lot of work people half your age can't/wont do".
Must be the era we come from with the same work ethic...:biggthumpup:

When I was a kid, mom used to make me sit still for punishment. I still hate sitting still. Probably why I never go fishing. I have two brothers that sail a LOT. After about 3 minutes on a sail boat, I am ready to head back to shore. Boring.
Sherri and I both put in a 35 – 40 hour week in the law practice and financial advisor practice. We are spending about 20 hours a week on the Museum, although now that the fundraiser is behind us, that is slowing down a bit… until the next cycle comes around. I have already drafted fundraising documents for next year’s event October 12, 2023. We set aside minimum of 10 hours a week for family.
On a good week, I can put in 25 plus hours on the workshop, depending on how much of the weekend I can devote to it. Typically, I am spending about 80 hours a week working on SOMETHING.
Personally, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

My 92 year old mother, who still drives, says you have to keep moving to have longevity. She still has things scheduled for each day and is sharp as a tac. Sometimes there isn't enough time in the day....... GOT TO KEEP ON KEEPIN ON!!

Looking great Lynn!

After getting those rooms ready, I got the North wall in the warehouse side insulated and drywalled. Then my son came over and helped me drywall the dividing wall. We used 12 foot sheets, so it went up pretty quick. We were done in less than three hours. Good thing, as we had to be at his military retirement ceremony that Sat. afternoon.
I swear it took 10 times as long to drywall those four tiny rooms, just because of all the cuts, and small pieces.
Sorry if these pics end up sideways. Every time I download pics from my phone, then flip them on the computer, they flip again when posting on line. If these come out OK, then I will know to just leave them flipped 90 degrees on the computer. I am a bit tech challenged these days.

3 out of 4. Don't know why the 4th one flipped.

Attachment 227195

After getting the dividing wall rocked on one side (the warehouse side), I wanted to get the other side spray foamed along with the inside of the North wall in the shop. But first I felt like I needed to get all the brick work squared away. There were a lot of loose bricks and a lot of crumbling mortar. Part of it is just age, but part is that the building had been victim to a fire before WWII. There had been some previous attempts to repoint the bricks, but it was not done very well at all. There is really only one way to do it right; you have to dig out ALL of the soft mortar, and tightly pack in new mortar. After paying a relative AND a professional mason to do the job, I decided to do it myself.

All of the pics in this post are AFTER the other guys had supposedly fixed it. All the white chalky mortar is so soft, you can dig it out with a fingernail. You can see in a couple of pictures, there is some new gray mortar next to the white stuff. The professional mason? He didn't do it, but had a couple "helpers" do that work. All they did was put mortar on a finger and push it into existing voids. They did not remove any of the old mortar. That wheel barrel? It is one of THREE full loads of old mortar that I dug out by hand in prep for new mortar.

On most of the lower section (where previous “repairs” had be performed) they had just taken mortar in hand and slathered it over all the bricks with voids between them. It was ugly. So, on that part, I used a hand held concrete grinder and ground down to the brick. Then I started digging out the mortar. Most of the mortar from that “repair” was really hard, so where it was stuck in the brick, I just left it. I only dug out what would come out with a screwdriver or paint scraper. Went through about 5 paint scrapers; and that screwdriver won’t likely ever drive a screw again. I kept sharpening it at the grinder.

Oops. Pics didn't attach.

Sorry to see you had to re/do all this yourself to get it right. Seems to be the way many contractors work anymore.
I'm confidant your work will still be there when the building turns 200 yrs old...:biggthumpup:

Ya'know, bringing this up again is like finding an old action/thriller novel a person read a year ago and forgot much of the details so.... ya just gotta go back and re-read the whole dang thang again...:laugh:

What’s the saying? If you want something done right, do it yourself” sadly this is more often the case these days!

I have always said there are three ways to get things done:
1. Hire it done.
2. Do it yourself.
3. Tell your kids not to do it.

Of course, that is a bit tongue in cheek. Apparently, 1 and 3 are hit and miss as far as quality.

I did get the two non brick walls in the shop spray foamed last week, and, for a change, i am very happy with the result. Guy did a great job, and you could barely tell he had been in there. Went with closed cell. Will post pics when we get to that. I am way behind bringing this up to date.

I had so much fun with the manhole cover, I decided to do a mini version.

When I got the building, there was no city water. But, it was hooked into the city sanitary sewer system. The sewer line coming from the building was actually exposed. Hard to believe. I did not want to dig for a new sewer line, so I made the best of it. When we poured the footer for the north wall, I made sure to build it up a bit over the slab height. I put a six inch pipe built into the footer horizontally, to allow the new sewer line exiting the building to pass through. I had to cut out the old part of the slab where the toilet was for two reasons. 1. I wanted to relocate it, and 2, I needed the sewer line to go just a bit lower to make sure I could cover it with the sidewalk. I am looking for pictures of that work, and can't find any. But I know there are somewhere. Will post when I find them.

Because the sewer line was so high, and because by code you have to have a cleanout setup right by the building, the clean out was slightly above grade. And it was right by the pedestrian door. So, while my electrician (Tommy) was doing some work that didn't require my help, I built this little concrete area to protect my clean out.

Small enough job that I just mixed cement in a wheel barrel. I used a sprinkler system cover and box from one of the big box stores. Should have taken a pic of it with the lid on. It looks very nice, and no one can tell it covers up the sanitary sewer clean out.
Technically, I think I need to grind off the words "Sprinkler System" and mark it permanently as the sewer clean out, but the inspector didn't say anything about it.

Almost done with brick work in the shop side. I have about 3 hours to go. There is no way to get the lower half looking good, but I have at least plugged all the holes and there is no loose mortar.

These pics show new mortar. I have not washed the brick yet, so it will look a bit better cleaned up. No point in washing until I get done with drywall tape and bed, as that sanding will create a whole new layer of dust.

My son came over yesterday for a few hours and we got started on drywall.

That brick wall is nice!!