What am I doing?

April 3, 2021 by Pascal Teste

Our backyard, with attached garage where I set-up my shop.

When we bought our 2000 square feet house six years ago, my wife and I were very excited and we set ourselves to renovate it.  Since I was a carpenter/contractor, it was decided that I would do the work myself and save ourselves major labour costs.  The plan was also for me to transition into full time furniture making once the house renovations would be completed.  So during the few years it took to spruce up the house, I periodically took the time to make furniture for ourselves and at the same time better my skills as a woodworker.

Right from the start I knew that I wanted a proper shop to work out of, but it would have to wait until our house renovations were done.  In the meantime, I set-up my workspace in the 380sf attached garage.  After two years of trying to stay warm in this poorly insulated garage, I was able to convince my wife that I needed to use some of our living space in the house to set-up a workbench so I could do the assembly, glue-ups, and finishing of the furniture I was making.  Arguing that I was risking burning down the house every time I surrounded myself with space heaters in the garage when I needed to do glue-ups so the glue would not freeze, was enough to convince her to agree to me creeping into the house.  

The minimal insulation I installed before setting up was not enough during the winter months to do glue-ups.

My home invasion

After postponing the construction of my new shop for two years, I finally started the project two weeks ago.  I decided to build a 760sf addition to the existing garage which will get completely gutted and properly insulated, giving me when everything will be done, 1000sf of workspace.   

Floor plan of new shop. The 37'x19' rectangle is the addition. The square above is the existing garage that will become part of the new space and have a finishing room.

Forms ready for concrete.

At this point in the construction process, the foundation forms are ready to receive the concrete which will be poured this week.  After that is done, we will prepare for the slab pour which will complete the concrete work for the addition part of the build.  Later, the existing slab in the garage will get built up to make it level with the new slab of the addition.  

I will try to post updates of the progress of the project on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.  

​Pascal Teste