The advantage of being a Packrat

Getting started on my permanent brewing room. Several years ago I built a 30x40 barn for all my vehicles. Been the best investment I've made since owning the house. Anyways, I decided to build the loft completely open, which gave me a great deal of potential for space. This winter I decided to carve out a couple spaces up there. One for my reloading room, and one for my Brewing room. Each are about 10x12, but the brewing room has an additional 6x8 closet that is becoming a Temp controlled fermentation chamber. As I've built I swear I've used more stuff that I've saved "just in case" from other projects.

The list includes
Lots of lumber
Insulation including 2" foam board (from the barn floor that I put pex in the slab)
Romex
Kitchen Countertop
and Last night I found about 25' of Nema B 10-3 that I removed from an old elec stove that used to be in the house.


I'm still sitting at about $1200 so far into the build but I feel a little better about the money I've saved from squirelling away stuff from other builds/remodels

A few pic's of my build.

first the barn from when it was first built:


first floor:


View toward the reloading room:


View of the Fermentation closet:


And View of the Brewing room


I've got to get some updated pic's as I've finished installing FRP (pain to install) in the brewing room, along with the flooring

 

Nice build! I really like it

 

Awesome! I'm looking into building a garage and was thinking of making it a loft garage but I think the only way that looks right is if you make it look like a barn as you have done!

I'm familiar with stick built framing and roofing but what I'm not clear on is how do you get a concrete floor poured after the building is erected? From the first picture it is clear that you had the structure pretty much complete before you poured the floor...was that difficult? Did you wish you had the slab poured first?

What was the cost of the slab? I really don't have more than about $5,000 to sink into my garage build (doing everything myself)....I will only need to pay someone to deliver and pour the concrete slab. I only have room on my lot for my garage to be either 20x30 or 20x40. I just need to be able to fit 2 cars and 2 motorcycles on the first floor.

You mentioned an investment of $1200. Was that for the entire structure, not including the slab? That seems very inexpensive for the size! Where do you get your materials?

Thanks!

Please update this with finished pictures of your brew rooms!

 

All the lumber is rough cut hemlock from the Dutchman just down the hill from me. I bought the logs and he milled them for me. Total cost for the shell including metal roofing was $7200. Doubt you'll be able to do the same unless your in the middle of amish country. Built as a pole barn, the way it's been done for a couple of centuries, minus the jointery. The poles themselves are 6x8 pressure treated lumber sunk about 4' before we hit rock. I'm on a side hill that is very rocky, not much clay or topsoil, just lots of rock. A pressure treated sill plate was nailed up around the base. I then backfilled with crushed bank and a vibratory tamper to bring it all level. Put down plastic put 2" foam board for insulation and then wire mesh. The pex was wire tied to the steel mesh, and then I called the concrete guy and had it poured and cut. He also power trowelled for a finish. I also had the fibers thrown in for strength. Concrete and work cost me $3500, but I did most of the prep work.

 

Thanks. Must have been a typo in your original post, it says $1,200 total cost in structure. haha.

The loft is going to put this out of my price range so I'm looking at just doing a 24 x 30 garage with standard truss roof. I may even build my own trusses depending on the cost of prefabbed v. rough lumber.

According to my calculations, if I prep the trench, bring in the rubble, lay my own wire, build my own forms I can get enough concrete delivered and poured for a 24x30 slab @ 5" thick for about $1500 +$300 for the wire, rebar, forms, etc. That only leaves me $3,200 for the structure. Cutting it close even if I buy from a lumber wholesaler. Darn these materials costs these days!

 

1200 is how much I have into the two rooms. that includes Drywall, FRP, Subfloor and Laminate flooring. I used 5/8 T&G MDF subflooring on top of the Hemlock planks making up the loft floor.

The Gambrel roof lends itself to a lot of waste because of all the angle cuts.

 

Very nice build. Also, nice to know a fellow reloader on here. My best friend likes that I make his beer his bullets.

 

based on your dimensions, you may want to look at moving up to a 30x30. you will likely need a bit of concrete to tie into your existing driveway, or ramp into it. At 5" your going to look at a little over 1 truck load of concrete. Partial trucks are a good bit more expensive/yard than trucks over 1/2 full. If you have the space on your lot, you may be able to get a bit more bang for your buck this way. 30' x 30' will give you a nice big 2 1/2 bay garage, with plenty of room front to rear to work around even relatively large vehicles. The extra 1/2 bay would be great for a work bench area or brew room.

 

More pic's of the FRP in the brewing room

 

Slowly moving forward for those that are interested. Here's the countertop and sink that I salvaged from a remodel. I made the counter two tier as I only have one pump right now. Going to gravity feed from the HLT to the MT, then pump from the MT to the BK. Going to build a rack for the CFC I just put together next.

Plan to hardware a 220 outlet on the plywood around the HLT. Since this is a dedicated room I figured I might as well make the outlets and sensor plugs permanent.