• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

NXCoupe's Shop Build

Nxcoupe

FBBO Gold Member
FBBO Gold Member
Local time
10:12 AM
Joined
Jul 4, 2021
Messages
2,407
Reaction score
3,127
Location
Red Lion, OH
So, at Carlisle, I was talking to some other members and I brought up my shop build project. After telling a little about the process, it was discussed that I should start a thread on my shop project. I need to find where I put my pictures from my phone, and when I do, I'll post those and continue the story.
 
I had just written an entire post, and my new laptop mistook my fat fingered keystroke and deleted the entire thing. Couldn't get it back for some reason either. I hate key shortcuts, wish I new how to turn them all off.
Anyway, lets try this again. I was renting a real pile of **** building that was 20k sq ft. I had rented this place for the past 5 years and never missed a rent payment, never was late either. On Saturday Aug 1, 2020, right in the heart of the 'crisis', I showed up in the morning like I always did, and noticed a letter taped to the front door. I thought, wtf?, and peeled it off the door. It was from my award winning asshole of a landlord informing me he had my place rented to someone else unless I wanted to pay the same amount he offered, 4 times what I was currently paying! Sheesh, yeah, right. And, AND!, he gave me 30 days to get out if I didn't want to pay the increased amount. He knew he was being a dick, as a friend of mine works for him and he was laughing about it. What a duchebag. We did it, took all of my friends and all of the 30 days to get all my tools, equipment, parts, cars, etc all moved out. Had to have my friend and his renters move their stuff out of the part he was renting as well. It sucked! Well, after we were moved out, I started the process of getting the financing in place for the barn build.
First we need to back up in time a bit to 2018 when we bought our 10 acre farm, it was with the intention of building a shop and moving everything into it and out of the pile I was renting. So, with that in mind, I called a pole barn place to get some prices. I asked about a 60 x 120 and it would be 36k erected on my pad. I thought that wasn't too bad.
Fast forward to August 2020. I called and asked how much, then I picked myself up off the floor, dusted myself off, and asked how much for a 60 x 64? He said around 38k. I said, sheesh, ok. I explained I was getting financing in order and he said the quote was good for 30 days. i figured we'd beat that no problem. lol, yeah, right. So we got our financing all done in Feb 2020. Yep, that much later. I called the barn guy up and got my updated quote, 44k!!!!! Yep, had gone up that much in that short of a time. Damn. So I asked to go over the estimate, and we cut out a couple things he said really weren't necessary, and I got it down to 43k. I sent the check and signed the agreement. I asked, when will you start on it? He replied sometime middle of June. I made our first vacation the first week of June and the second one the last weekend of July, plenty safe right?
Most of June goes by and no word. I call and ask, when do you think you'll be out? You said June? He responded, well probably about 2 weeks. I said great, I'm going on vacation the last week of July and gave him the dates.
We leave on vacation that Friday of the 3rd week of July and head to Florida. I drove straight through with the wife, daughter and the dog. We get there and I unload and tote up to the third floor all the luggage, cooler, dog kennel, etc. I finally get to bed around 2 or 3 am. That Saturday morning, I'm laying on the couch surfing the net and decided to check my email. There was an email from the barn guy, so I opened it. He said, we'll be out this Wednesday to get started! i thought ****! I called him right away and he actually answered on a Saturday, I thought that was cool. I said, remember I'm on vacation this last week of July, he responded, I thought that was next week, yeah, the last week of July in August. lol. ****. So I asked when he could reschedule me, and he replied, 2 weeks, maybe longer. I responded I'll see ya Wednesday!!! I hung up and yelled, we're leaving Monday!!! It was very well received. We all took one for the team and headed back.
In April, I had a guy that said he could do the pad for me come out and 'prep' the pad. Yeah, right. This guy couldn't find his *** using both hands. I realized this when he showed up the day after he had dug up my field, with his laser level and informed me the pad tapered 18" lower from front to back. I thought, no ****? So you wasted all my time and money. great. I had 'gravel' brought in and he spread it all around and drove back and forth in his skid steer 'compacting' the gravel down. Yeah, right. He text me saying he had the gravel all lined up to lay down to raise it the 18" it needed and told him no thanks, I'm good.
I called around and asked my friends if they knew anyone that could do concrete and was given a guy's info to contact that did excellent work. He sounded professional and gave me an estimate that seemed high, but reasonable. He said call me when the building is up. I said ok.
We got back home and Wednesday morning a van full of Amish guys showed up with a trailer full of tools, and there were all the building materials spread all around my field. The guys wasted no time, and got out all there stuff, and the foreman came to me asked where I wanted the building. I told him I think here on this pad, he said are you sure? I'm thinking, no I'm not sure, I don't build buildings for a living. I said I guess so, and he pounded in the first stake and they started laying out the square of the building.
20210428_104620.jpg


20210526_160906.jpg


20210526_160931.jpg


20210527_130551.jpg


20210613_195201.jpg
 
Last edited:
nice meeting you at the tent...... good luck on the shop build...... asshole did you a favor..... there is no place like home! (ask me how I know lol)
 
Last edited:
Wow - that sucks. But, sometimes bad events end up making for something much more positive. I'm looking forward to your build as I'm sure it will be much better than your old place!
 
Ok, so about a $4k lesson learned with this yayhoo. The Amish guys jumped to it and got on it. It looked good after just one day of work.
20210707_113314.jpg
20210707_113601.jpg
20210721_093342.jpg
20210721_123105.jpg
20210721_123118.jpg
 
Wow - that sucks. But, sometimes bad events end up making for something much more positive. I'm looking forward to your build as I'm sure it will be much better than your old place!
Yep, it's been a roller coaster of a ride, but I've learned a ton about being my own contractor and how to go about things like this.
nice meeting you at the tent...... good luck on the shop build...... asshole did you a favor..... there is no place like home! (ask me how I know lol)
Nice meeting both of you guys! Yeah, he was a real piece of work. He was a friend of a close friend of mine that passed away recently. I thought I could trust him. nuh uh. My buddy warned me before he passed, he said, yeah, they're my friends, but I don't trust some of them as far as I can throw them. He was a very wise man, and sorely missed.
 
So, onward and upward, literally. They kept right on trucking all day in the heat. A 50 x 64 would have been about 5k less because they don't have to use a crane to set the trusses. I was stoked. This was in July of 2021.

20210722_144340.jpg


20210722_144441.jpg


20210722_144447.jpg
 
I remember walking into it and thinking, this is so SMALL! How will I ever get all my crap into this place. More on that later. On Friday, they informed me they had been shorted some materials and couldn't finish, so they were leaving early. I understood and hoped it would be there by Monday. Over the weekend, my boss called me and absolutely had to have me out at a dealership on Monday morning, so I missed talking to them and watching it get finished up. Here are some more pics from Friday and then that Monday. You can see the gap at the bottom of the walls very clearly in the last few pictures. I decided to pull a car in and see just how much room there was. It still seemed small, but it was hard to judge with just gravel on the ground. At least I thought it was gravel. teaser!






20210723_095814.jpg
20210723_095817.jpg
20210726_090811.jpg
20210726_090832.jpg
20210726_090835.jpg
20210726_090842.jpg
20211025_104842.jpg
20211025_104908.jpg
20211025_104944.jpg
 
I called the concrete guy on August first and sent him pics. He responded by saying he needed to come down and see it and it would be about 2 weeks before he could get down here and get started. I said ok, cool. it'll give me time to get ready. 2 weeks went by and I called him again. He said he was covered up busy and would try to get out there to see me soon. Well, August went by and he finally came down second week in Sept to look at it. Set up his laser level and started taking measurements. yep, 18" down. I'll need to add onto that estimate, he said. I said ok, when can you start, he said, let me get the estimate done and I should be able to come right out. Ok. week went by and I finally received the 5k increase in the estimate. I signed it and said, When? He said real soon. 3rd week in October, mind you I live in Ohio, he texts me and says if I want to find someone else to do it, he wouldn't care. I proceeded to lose my cool, shouting, cussing, kicking the carpet, pacing around with steam coming out of my ears, and my wife asked what happened. I explained. She let me continue venting and went to the computer and googled concrete and excavating. She said, why don't you call some of these guys? I thought, screw it, ok. I called, only go ahold of one place, and he said they didn't do that kind of work anymore. He gave me 2 numbers to try. I called both, the second guy, Sonny Qvick, called me back. He said he'd like to see it and he'd try to make it out that day. At 6 pm, he was standing in my driveway and we walked down to take a look. He said, man that's way down from where it should be, why'd you put it here? I told him the story and he nodded. He said, the same guy put this slag all over your pad? I said, you mean the gravel? He said no, I mean the slag, they get this free from the Steel Mill. He said, you know you can't pour over this right? I said, no, I didn't know that. Great, that asshole was the gift that just keeps on giving. He said, besides, it hasn't been compacted at all. He went on to say that he would want to speak to the engineer at the concrete place and see what they could do with this crap and salvage my investment. I thought, this guy is THE guy. He gave me an estimate a week later, 3k cheaper than the put-me-off asshole, so I signed it and said when can you start? He said I'll see you Wednesday if the weather holds out. By this time it is the end of October and he'd be out the beginning of November. He showed up and had gravel delivered. For anyone else that has this con played on them about slag for gravel, it can be used, but it has to degas for months first, check, and then have at least 6" of gravel on top of it. So you guessed it, he moved all that **** to the back of the shop in the deep end of the pool and proceeded to pile and compact, with a compacter on the skid steer(about 10' wide, shook the house when they'd start compacting) and went about prepping. Pics tell the story.


20211025_112044.jpg
20211025_112103.jpg
20211025_140539.jpg
20211025_140545.jpg
20211025_164930.jpg
20211025_164944.jpg
20211025_165219.jpg
20211026_133709.jpg
20211026_133720.jpg
20211027_114413.jpg
 
They put that slag to good use, piling it around the outside, and the back, and filling up the inside with about 3 inches or so, then compacting it all down. Gradually getting the pad up to where it should have been. They even dug out for my plumbing and helped me stub that out. What a great group of guys. We keep in touch still today. He checked on my house this past June when we were on vaca and is pouring the pad in front of the shop and straightening out the yellow brick road of a driveway up to the shop that I have currently. Good people I hold close.
20211027_155735.jpg
20211027_155751.jpg
20211028_113832.jpg
20211028_114503.jpg
20211028_114841.jpg
20211028_120503.jpg
20211028_121037.jpg
20211028_131453.jpg
20211028_165137.jpg
20211028_200130.jpg
 
They came out the next day and started framing out for the second half of the pad. First pic is the second pic of the plumbing stubbed in. These guys busted ***, they worked until 10 pm Friday night. Then they were back out at 9 am Saturday cutting the expansion lines in the concrete. What a great job on such short notice and fixing some other guy's shitty work. Wish I had that 4k back right about now. All done! I'm telling you, the finish was like glass. Little did we know...........

20211028_200135.jpg
20211029_150625.jpg
20211029_150636.jpg
 
Sonny said to wait about 5 weeks before putting a vehicle on it. So, middle of December, freezing cold, shop's not done. Going on the second year here soon. While I waited to be able to get into the shop, I called about painting the floors. I did my research and decided on polyaspartic paint. I searched around and decided on one company because the guy was real knowledgeable and willing to answer all my ignorant questions. All the paint arrived in December. He sent me the stuff that I could use down to 32 degrees! Yep, freezing temp but this stuff will still harden and stick. I thought, great, as soon as the door gets put on, I'll get on it. The week before Thanksgiving, I ordered my 14' by 12' garage door and opener. Got a few laughable estimates(9k), lol, and then one guy told me around 4k with an opener, installed, 3" thick insulated door. Sold! he said it would be about 6 weeks. I did the math, middle of January, cool! So I moved onto other things. First thing was to empty out one of the storage units, the one that had all the totes of crap, tires, household stuff, etc. It took us a few nights filling up my enclosed trailer to get it all moved, but we did. I pulled in some cars and used tarps to park the cars on so they wouldn't leak and stain the concrete. I also had James, the guy that helped me dig out for my plumbing and who had the compactor on his Bobcat to compact all that gravel down, to come out and grade around the shop since it was put in the wrong spot on my field. he did a great job, but I had to have 2 trees cut down and the stumps ground not once, but twice. He hit them with the blade and needed them lower. He found all this crap buried by the old farmer that used to own the place. Turned into a muddy mess. He called a gravel company and they wouldn't come out because my trees would scratch their trucks!!!! LOL!! I had 13 loads of gravel delivered and it wasn't a problem then, and I was 2 trees down now. Sheesh. So no gravel. James did the best he could with what was there and said he'd be back at some point to finish it up. That was January.

20211106_122833.jpg


20211106_122841.jpg


20211225_152442.jpg


20211225_152449.jpg


20220115_092102.jpg


20220115_092127.jpg


20220115_092143.jpg
 
I was talking to the floor paint guy and he said the floor should feel like 100 grit sandpaper. I said, my floor is smooth as a baby's ***. He said you'll have to grind it. SWEET! More money and time! I hate saving money! I proceeded to call around to tool rental places and no one had anything that would work to give me that roughness of a surface. My buddy Neil and I discussed this latest issue, he's been involved in this mess the entire time and I just realized I left him out of the story, and we felt that without any electric out in the shop to run a grinder, the paint was going to have to wait. Besides, I didn't have a door on the place yet. What if we painted and it rained or snowed in on the fresh paint? That would suck. We agreed to move on to electric and waiting on the door to be installed. I ran extension cords from my shed out to the barn so the door guys would have electric to test the door out once it ever got installed. I went shopping after talking with an electrical guy that came out and gave me an estimate to hook it up to my house for 800 to 1k. I said that sounded a bit high, but I'd go with it since he gave me all kinds of tips and pointers. I bought a panel, breakers, and boxes. I looked at wire prices and had to pick myself up off the floor again. Sheet! 14-2, 100 foot nearly 200 bucks!!!!! My God! So I proceeded to search marketplace. I found lots of shady people selling wire at about 40 to 50 cents on the dollar. I messaged around and ended up meeting a guy in a walmart parking lot and bought wire out of a Hundya, and met another guy in a Kroger's parking lot, twice, to buy wire. I met him to buy to types, then he messages me and says he also has a bunch of other ones that I also need. I ended up saving about 1400 bucks on wire with tax. I hung the box so we could start running circuits. I'm no electrician but I can run a wire from point A to B.
20220220_121544.jpg
 
Middle of February now, garage door guy calls and says the door has arrived. YAY! He says he'll be out that next week and install it. He calls that next week and says they opened the box and yep, missing parts. Be a few weeks before they can get what's missing and he'll be out as soon as they arrive. He was right on schedule and showed up to install it. They did a 4 out of 5 job on installing the door. I did not like the bracketry arrangement they used to hold the opener up. More on that later. Door operates, well, like a new one! Smooth, no noise, very quiet up and down. Gave me extra openers and a code box on the jamb too. I was happy. The dog's birthday, wife's birthday and my birthday had all come and gone.
20220111_190719.jpg
20220228_121307.jpg
20220228_121822.jpg
20220228_125247.jpg
20220228_142156.jpg
20220228_180414.jpg
20220228_180440.jpg
 
They came out later and put the seal around the outside of the door. We moved on to laying out the wiring. i rented a scissors lift and we went to work. It isn't professional, but it gets power to where it needs to. At this point there is still no power to the garage other than my extension cords.
20220305_120705.jpg
20220305_125212.jpg
20220326_103623.jpg
20220326_103630.jpg
20220326_103646.jpg
20220326_103657.jpg
 
Shitty deal on the rented space.. You'll be far better off when your done.... But as is the norm these days it sounds like your gonna meet every scamming POS along your journey..... Good Luck, hopefully this has a happy ending...
 
I needed electric ran out to the garage from the house, so the electrician said to get 2-2-2-4 to run out underground. I found a place called Nassau Cable and ordered 275 ft from them. It arrived and wasn't too hateful at around 600 bucks to my door. I needed a trench dug, so enter Sonny again. He said no problem, I'll stop home and load the machine and I'll be right out. He called back about an hour later and said, I'm on my way to the hospital with my wife, my twins are coming right now, I'll send Dennis out to do it. I said cool, congrats, and thanks. Dennis showed up and dug me a nice 2 to 3 foot trench back to the shop. We cut the cable and 2 power wires on the way out to the garage. So the animal barn and the shed were without power. Remember those extension cords I ran out to power the door? lol. Yep, door doesn't work. I did my best and fixed the wire temporarily to get power back up until Neil came out and did the solder and multiple layers of heat shrink on it. good as new. Cable company came out and fixed the cable. It was 'buried' 1 inch below the surface. lol. He asked if I wanted a dig team to come out and bury it again, I laughed and said no, I got this. I'll actually bury it myself. Neil, Adam and I rolled out the cable from the garage to the house. It barely made it. We were too beat to take any pics of that. Rolling out that big *** wire will whip you in a hurry. It goes where it wants to.
20220317_193704.jpg
20220317_193730.jpg
20220317_193737.jpg
 
Shitty deal on the rented space.. You'll be far better off when your done.... But as is the norm these days it sounds like your gonna meet every scamming POS along your journey..... Good Luck, hopefully this has a happy ending...
Thanks man, and your avatar is one of my favorite comedians of all time. He really had a down to earth view of the world. Shame he's gone, and at the hands of one of his ex wives!
 
Auto Transport Service
Back
Top