Let's see your Man Castle

I can't comment on the weight but as far as clean up goes in works wonders for me! I took extra time to ensure tight joints and clean for me is a breeze with a power washer.

If its race deck its indestructible basically. It would easily support your project.

I thought about it but I use my garage for more than a workshop so I went with something softer under foot, but my neighbor has it, almost as you describe, in blue and white, he is a Beemer fan too. It looks great and its super strong. He paid about 2.10 a Sq Ft, but that was a couple of years ago.

While not the caliber of most of the masterpieces of this thread, I'm pretty proud of my first building.

My house and property are a mess right now. I bought it from my parents somewhat "as is" with some unwritten rules about how long they are going to store their crap here and how much crap they're going to leave behind. There is a two and a half car garage, a large workshop at the back corner of the property, and large loft room above the garage, but the workshop is under construction and has no front wall and I've managed to fill all the covered space with my parents crap out of the garage, making just enough room in the garage for my Jeep and my tools, lawnmower, etc. and my brothers car which he left in the side yard when he joined the military. The room above the garage that would be perfect for my bike workshop, its still full of my parents crap too, including a pool table.

I tried to avoid another building on the property but I just found myself with no room to work. There could be a television show about my Dad and the stuff he collects, but thats another thread.

So construction commenced. Knowing only what I learned from watchind my Dad half build, then tear down and build differently the garage and back storage shed for the past thirty five years, I bought 45 econo studs and a box of nails and built a stack of walls



After two days of clearing the area of a temporary shelter covering a large amount of scrap wood, and also hiding another large pile of scrap wood, which covered a huge compost bin full of scrap wood, newspaper, insulation, carpet, cardboard, carefully interwoven with dirt, scrap metal, and stuff I don't recognize, housing ants, spiders, snakes, baby rats, millipedes, earthworms, hornworms, beetles, and a multitude of other things I don't recognize, I found a foundation wall in just the right place for one wall.

That was nice, one level foundation wall to square up everything else too. I don't know why there was a foundation wall there, there was never a building there. Actually I found concrete forms built off one end, it looks there was a plan to double the size of the workshop at one time.

With the site mostly prepared, my walls went up. In clearing the area, I found a nice set of double doors that open outwards perfect for the project. I'm sure my Dad will want the doors once he sees I'm using them, they'll suddenly be the most important item in the whole collection. Too damn bad.



The roof beams were cut from used lumber in the yard, with the amount of scrap lumber in the yard I thought this wouldn't be a problem, but theres not nearly enough useable material. Eventually I got enough lumber in the roof. Went back to the lumber store for a dozen sheets of OSB and I got three sides and the roof sheeted.

I managed to convince a retired roofer I know to come over with his gear and nailgun and show me how its done. I thought I had enough shingles in the yard to do it, there was a large pile of shingles nicely stacked right beside where my new building is. Turned out they were used shingles. Crappy back to the building supply store for five bundles of shingles.

Saturday afternoon the roof looked better than the roof on my house and I used up all the rest of my OSB trying to finish so I could take the day off and go riding on Sunday.



Sunday I went for a 600 km ride anyway. Got home just in time to jump in the truck and get to the Home Depot for one more sheet of OSB. Once the front was sheeted I stuck the doors in the hole. At least I tried to. Crap the building is a little bit crooked. I took the diagonal off the front wall because it was in the way of nailing the header together. Too soon. Off with the sheeting on the front wall. I'm sure glad I used screws and not nails. A large ratchet strap to pull it square again and then back on with the OSB sheeting.

Monday after work, picked up a set of new hinges and hung the doors. My first building is now useable




It needs some siding, for the moment I'll cover it with a water resistant membrane of some sort. It needs a floor, but with my Dads hoarding condition theres about 2500 red paving bricks stacked beside the house, those will do for my temporary structure

Its 8' x 8' 6", and 10' 6" at the peak of the roof. Well under the 96 square feet that makes it exempt for a building permit, and since only one wall sits on a foundation, its a temporary structure therefore being exempt from most building codes.

Inside will be a narrow workbench on each side, just wide enough to work on the Honda Z50's and pocket bikes, but narrow to maximize floorspace for my XRL. Two beams will be added on top of the walls as a lift point for hoisting the bike off the ground rather than having to buy a lift. I have an ATV winch I'll use for hoisting duties. I'll just use the battery off my trailer to power it when I need it.

Maybe a little bit of attic storage at the ends. Maybe some underbench storage. Maybe some lighting.

Eight feet isn't a lot, but it will do for now. It will sure beat fighting through a hallway and two doorways to get it into the living room every night. Eventually my bike projects will all live in the 14x16 workshop but thats several moving truck trips and a couple months wages away, for now, welcome to my playhouse.

Nice work...it's a bit hard to tell, but all four walls are supported on concrete, correct?

Sort of but not really. The far side wall is on an honest foundation wall. The back wall is sitting on a layer of broken concrete pieces that I carefully placed to make a something solid. The near wall is sitting on red building bricks and the front is on a layer of flat concrete landscaping tiles. So yes its supported by concrete in the loosest sense.

They show a bunch of garages on their website. Racedeck Gallery They used to send a sample piece to you.

See this post 48 page 4

Just heard back from Racetrack. Here is their cost estimate for a 12x24 garage:

Floor plan specs:
FLOOR SIZE: 12' x 24' Rectangle
TILE TOTAL: 288
110 - Royal Blue Diamond Tile(s)
110 - White Diamond Tile(s)
68 - Black Diamond Tile(s)

288 x $3.49 = $1005.12 plus shipping and edges

We recommend installing ramp edges at the opening of your garage door. Do you know the width of your door?
​

I guestimated it at 10- feet and they gave me the pricing for the edging and shipping as an extra.

In total, the bill will come to $1120.02 including shipping.

Hmmmmmmm......................

Tonight I got a brick floor down in my micro garage. While brick is not the most desireable flooring, it was free. I didn't take the time to compact the freshly sifted soil that I levelled it out with, so it will be uneven very soon, but officialy this is a temporary structure.

so I got the bike inside


now that my bike has a safe place to live, I can get back to clearing the rest of the yard. Here is the view from inside my bikes new house


yeah it was amazing that I was able to make a path to get my bike through


the building in the back ground is my future bike workshop, right now its full floor to ceiling of my parents thirty years of crap. The pile of wood is what was occupying the space that I built the new building on


one day I will have something to be envious of. In the meantime my 8x8 microgarage will meet my basic needs.
I do have a two car garage, but its currently being used as somewhat of a processing area to sort everything that I'm trying to get rid of, having the bike in the middle while processing scrap metal is a poor combination :eek1

Look at it this way. People who have no garage at all and have to leave their bikes parked under covers at the curb are envious of your "microgarage." Be happy with what you have. Besides....you could probably fit three bikes in there

I suggest that you get a more stable foundation underneath the other walls than tiles/broken pieces of concrete or I fear your building will be precariously tilted and/or falling apart within a year or two.

You can excavate underneath the center of each wall about two feet wide by however deep the frost line is in your area. Mix up bags of concrete by hand in a wheelbarrow and pour the stuff in until it comes up to touch the bottom stringer of the wall. Let harden for a day then do the same thing at each end of each wall so you are building small pylons under the walls. I don't think it's a really good idea to have the building essentially just sitting on the ground most of the way around. Your one properly supported wall won't move but the rest will and it could tear the thing apart.

He's got a mixer- I saw it there in the yard. I agree- get something stable under your sills. As a matter of fact, pour the footers, and slide pieces of pressure treated lumber under there, then lower the building back down onto the sills. In BC I'd have to guess you're going to have some water to deal with. And your bike is not a plastic boat. Temporary buildings have a way of finding new uses and longer lives than originally intended. YMMV

I apreciate the feedback but its staying the way it is for a while. If I decide next summer that its a permanent fixture, I'll drag the building out of there and pour a concrete slab. Its solid enough I can move it or lift it. Frost heaving here is pretty minimal, our weather is pretty mild. A lot of rain but I'm on a city lot at the top of a hill, my ground doesn't move.

Yep theres a cement mixer, about six yards of navyjack gravel, and about thirty bags of cement. I could pave the whole yard I suppose, but I'll start with the garage, half of it is still a dirt floor.

Now, off to waste my Friday night loading all that scrap wood into the truck.

Not a waste at all! I'll bet the neighbors are appreciating the effort! It reminds me of the mess we had to clean up after my parents passed away. We sell, donate or throw away alot more and keep alot less these days...

yes you're absolutely right. The neighbors constantly complain to the city. The house has been in my name for about ten years because among other things that my parents can't handle, they can't handle money either. So of course the city sends me the threatening letters rather than them. So every couple years I've had to spend a couple grand in a hurry to avoid having the city come in and level everything and send me off to jail.

Every day I regret buying my parents out, but its also a relief to know that this is the last time I'm going to have to be responsible for my Dads mess.

Hey, I thought I recognized that frame!

Nice. What kind of work are you doing on yours? I've got a build thread in my sig line for mine.

All is revealed here...

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=204237

not "owned" by me but all mine none the less.and its 30x60..consider it "rented" space ...most of the stuff in its mine anyway or stuff im working on for others......

I saw this on Overstock.com -Diamond-tread-Garage-Floor-Cover $599 for 10'x24'




Comfort Foam. $22 for 16 sqft.


While I'm looking Lifetime Storage Building (11' x 18.5') $3833

Dude, you need to have a fire.