Why would you do anything other than design a shop to be compatible and consistent with the design of your new house? Are the products of your wood shop inconsistent with where they will be used?

Take the time, do it right and have the wood shop truly represent your abilities and the products produced in your shop!

Good luck with your project.

Hi Virgil... thanks for your response however I'm confused with by your question:
[quote] Are the products of your wood shop inconsistent with where they will be used? [/quote]

Not sure that the design/construction of our wood-shop has any relevance to the wood products we make... ie; unique, handcrafted pens and laser engraving. ..??...

I should have noted that our development is in the country and our property is 3.5 acres. So metal buildings are used quite frequently for shops etc.

I'm just curious if anyone had a similar decision to make and what they decided to do.

Virgil... the answer is cost and ease/speed of building...

jannz -- you want to google "pole buildings."

We talked with Morton Buildings and had them price out a building design for us. I know very little about these types of outbuilding and what is available but Morton looks like a quality building and has very visually attractive options. They are not available in every state, though, so check out their website. I have more to learn before we decide what to do and am going to ask our builder for his thoughts.

Nanj: I'm in the same boat... need to learn more about these outbuildings. I do want it attractive though.

What size are you considering..??..

Our neighbor has a '60 x 40' metal building that is used as an artists studio . It also has stairs to a loft area. I think that's the size we want too. Theirs isn't a Morton building though... the company they used is no longer in business.

Another place to look are farm supply stores. A chain near us (Mills Fleet Farm) offers steel buildings by special order. I suspect their competitors offer them too.

I just did a search on homedepot.com and found some there too.

We are building a new home on an acreage and wanted another garage for all the toys and it will also be nice to just use the attached garage for vehicles only...no lawnmower or weedeater etc in the way.

There is a Mennonite community near our home and one of the building crews are constructing our building. It will be 32' wide by 45' long with 2 insulated 9'x9' overhead doors, wainscoating, 4 windows, 2 cupolas, insulated in walls and ceiling, and have a covered porch.
The picture below is similar to ours. The building cost was close to $18,000.00 and that includes erection and concrete is around $8,000.00 and that includes a full 5" of concrete floor and exterior apron.
Morton builds a great building but I went with the local members of our community.
Our building is all steel including trusses and framework.

This post was edited by LOTO on Sun, Mar 24, 13 at 15:19

Oh wow LOTO -- that's a beautiful building and the price [24K] seems very reasonable!! I would love it if we could achieve something this attractive.

That is a nice looking building and very similar to what we would like to have. Morton advertises the quality of their steel they call Fluoroflex (tm) 1000 Hi-Rib Steel, minimum of 0.019 thickness. I assume this is a quality steel but have nothing to compare it to. LOTO, do you recall what your building will have? That price you got sounds great.

We priced out a 48' x 36' building with 3 windows, one walk-through door, 2 over head doors, a 12'x'6' porch, a cupola and several other upgrades and the quote for the complete building and concrete was about $36,000.

If you google "pole buildings" or "pole barns" and "stick built" garages/shops/buildings/etc., you'll find threads on other forums on this topic.

We haven't built our shop yet, but I have researched it over the last couple years. For me, I found companies that specialize in this at our local home & garden expo, via word of mouth, on craigslist under services and on my county's permit web site. My county gives all the information on what permits were applied for and what company is doing the work; it basically gave me a list of who was building the shops locally and how much they are valued at.. I've done lots of driving around to look at the work done and see if it is what I'm after....

Since we plan on finishing our shop to match our house and insulating it, a pole building vs. stick-built building is around the same price. There is no point, for us, to pursue a pole building because of it. If you don't want to insulate and don't need to match finishes (on all sides,) a pole building will likely cost much less.

nanj...There are a couple of ways to measure steel (sheet steel versus galvanized steel) but usually .019 is 28 guage. My building will use 26 guage which is slightly thicker at .022.
We are fortunate to have an abundance of Mennonite builders in our are and they are very competitive in their pricing. They are pretty fun to talk to also but they lose me evey know and then when they go to speaking in their language :) I am dying to ask them if the every watch the TV show "Amish Mafia"
The 2 overhead doors are insulated and a full 2" thick and are really sturdy and the prices with opener are very reasonable and I am going to buy my doors for my house from them.
The Mennonites are very good craftsmen and build things to last.

Here is a link that might be useful: Guage/Weight Chart

Thanks for the conversion information, LOTO. Jotted that down for future reference. I don't think we have Mennonite communities where we will be building (SC) but we have found a terrific builder so I plan to ask him for a quote for our building.

nanj....I lived in Walterboro SC for about 1 year (1981) when I was working on a construction project...beautiful country and lots of history in SC....just didn't like the fire ants...nobody warned me about them and I found out the hard way.