I love to build stuff on the cheap too. Lowe's has discontinued their "cull" rack at the contractor entrance. Got lots of stuff dirt cheap there. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.
Following.... I too cannot bite the bullet on lumber. I got some pretty good pallets a few weeks ago. I plan on building a lean to and lumber rack off my only shed. I recently built shelves in my only shed with pallets. Not the purdiest job, but it gave me room to get the camping equipment out of the garage.
Looking forward to more updates... and more ideas! Keep them coming, I'm soaking them up for my future use!!
Change of plans on the pallet building front!!! Some of you may remember this thread I made awhile back. An interesting project Basically it involved the removal of a shed roof, and expansion of an existing lean-to. The existing lean-to was 12'x20' but had low ceilings. The new building will be 20'x23'. It would have looked something like this. 12' high walls for a mezzanine storage rack for implements and accessories for the tractors, as well as to clear the peak of the existing gambrel roof for an easy transition for flashing and waterproofing the roof. Being on the Ramsey plan, it was a cash deal and my wife agreed as long as I saved the money cash. I priced out the materials, and could do it for 4 grand. Of course as per usual the week before I finally had the cash Covid pushed lumber prices through the roof. The 4 grand project was now a 8-10 grand project. Pretty depressing to say the least. I had high hopes that if I waited it out prices would return to normal. Of course that hasn't happened, and the money was largely spent on other needed things. I was thinking about the new pallet building and thought to myself, why are you making a building in the woods for firewood when you have an unfinished building project already in the works you dumbass!!! The pallets may be my ticket out of this mess!!! Of course as per every build challenges arise. The 4- 12' high walls will be tough with a hinge point as the pallets are only up to 9' long. I could do a strongback every 4' where two pallets meet, and may. The wall against the old wall will be ok as I can secure the pallets at that hinge point to the old wall. Therefore, I came up with an alternate design. A shed style roof instead of a gable roof. If I make one side 8' and the other 13', Ill end up with about a 3/12 pitch which is the minimum I'd want for water and snow runoff. The 13' side can still have an implement shelf. If I move the two OH doors to the right wall, it will be much easier to unload the implement shelf with the forks. The ground there is a couple of feet lower though, so I'd need to bring in quite a bit of fill. I was able to get some more pallets after work yesterday and clean up the 5/4x6 PT decking from my neighbor. While I was getting more pallets I found another plastic pallet. These will be turned into homeade IBC cages I'm planning on using the 5/4x6 PT decking for the sill plates against the concrete. Normally I'd use PT 2x6, but I need to save money where I can. There will be a KD 2x6 on top of the 5/4, as well as a double top plate. The roof I'm unsure of as of right now. Ideally I'd find free or very cheap rough sawn 2x12x24 or leftover I-joists. I don't see that happening though so I may use logs from the property, then run 2x purlins perpendicular on top followed up with the metal roofing I have. I'd use spare pallet material to fill in the gaps of the exterior walls, and eventually would probably reside the whole building.
Its the best thing we ever did. Sucks living paycheck to paycheck like 78% of Americans when you make a combined $165k/year. We were doing things wrong. Hopefully in 10 years time I can look back as a millionaire with no mortgage, plenty of assets, huge retirement, and laugh at how silly I was.
Yup, its shocking how prevalent poor money management is...when we took the class I couldn't believe how very few had a paid for home and/or even 3-6 months living expenses saved up...not so shocking among younger people, but most of the older couples were no better off!
You have to have a plan and most don’t unfortunately and don’t think they make enough money to have one. It’s crazy
Cant say I really made any progress building wise, but I did work on the pallet building a good portion of the day. First order of business was to take down the dog kennel so I'd have somewhere temporary to house the tractors. Then I had to figure out to do with the monster Simplicity Powermax 9020. Not running at this time. Once the building is up, the PM will be one of my first projects. Not easy to move around rolling by hand. Impossible without a machine as it weighs about 1700 lbs. with the 60" deck and three point hitch. Luckily I knew just the "man" for the job. You guys may have seen this pic before and wondered what the contraption on the 3 point hitch was. Well...its to haul non runners to the repair shop. Like his amigo the 9020 here. Good thing the 448 is so dam rugged Once the tractors were all out, I could focus on taking out the wiring, outlets, lights, shelving, etc. Then I blew out all the leaves, re connected 2 outlets so I'd have power and stripped the forms. Finally I squared up the floor, snapped some chalk lines and put tools away. Tomorrow I hope to take down the roof. (That should be interesting), put down the sill seal, pt plates, and start some pallet assembly.
Not a great deal of progress today unfortunately. I did get a few things done though. I cant wait to start building, but I have to get all the prep items and demo done first. I started off by removing the old roof. i wanted to lift it off with the tractor, but I had to come to the realization that the likelihood of that going smoothly with no injuries to me, the Kioti, or the building were pretty slim. Therefore I bit the bullet and decided to take it apart by hand. I started by stripping the roof shingles. Not a big roof, only about 2.5 squares. Got that done fairly quickly. I need a roll off dumpster for some other items I'm throwing away. Until then they will have to keep the black trailer company. Then I hit the plywood sheathing off from the bottom with an 8 lb sledge hammer. I was hoping to reuse the plywood, and may still be able to. The ice and water shield is stuck to it pretty good though. Once it was just the frame it was much easier. I cut the old 2x8 rafters as long as I could to re-purpose down the line. I cut the old end gable wall level and plan to extend that wall out to the corner. The pallets on that side will sit on the old wall section.
I added a 2x plate to the old wall section I then ripped the old ledger board off. I knew the flashing on this roof was done wrong. After shingling I bent a piece of aluminum flashing and nailed a 1x Pine board through the top of the flashing into the wall. Then a bead of caulking at the top seam. Due to the irregular thicknesses of the Pine Boards, it didn't get a good seal and several spots leaked through. Glad I ripped it off. It wasn't a good design to begin with, but I was limited at the time with money and height of the old building. Here's where the old ledger was. If you look close you'll see it was pretty rotted in spots So I cut that rotted section out And replaced it with other Pine boards I took off a portion of the old lean too walls They're calling for rain on Monday, so I put the dog kennel back in. Looks like a tractor jail now. At least they'll stay fairly dry and out of the weather. The roof of the dog kennel is old garage doors That's it for pics, but I also built the headers for the 3 overhead doors. I went with some free 2x6's I got. These are true 2" x 6" old growth. I think one old 2x6 board is heavier than 2 of the 2x8 rafters I took off. No doubt in my mind they are stronger than modern 2x8's (1.5" x 7.25") The two main doors will be 10'w x 8' high, and the side entry door will be 8'w x 8'h. I also cut all the sill plates. I ended up using some free PT 2x6 I got. I drilled 2.5"-3" deep holes into the concrete and epoxied in some 1/2" threaded rod. The plates will be bolted down. Due to finishing the slab easier, I decided not to embed J bolts at the time I poured it. Would have been better, but I've used the 2 part epoxy before and it is incredibly strong. Never been a fan of the red head type fasteners, and tapcons weren't quite hd enough for my liking.
Love the update, excited to read more! Slow and steady wins the race!! They're calling for rain here late Sunday night into Monday. Got a good chuckle out of "tractor jail"!
Looks great! It’s good to repurpose lumber considering current prices. That’s gonna make a nice shed.
I was able to work on the pallet garage for awhile today. I did have some other things I had to do as well. Like bring in a couple cages of Black Birch/Red Maple deluxe mix. Make a temporary cover for the big Simplicity. I’ll make this better/beefier with a pallet on the low side soon. Peek-a-boo...I see you Cleaned out the chicken coop, didn’t take pics of the chicken poop, sorry friends. I also organized the lumber a bit more. There is quite a bit at this pint. I'll have kindling galore from all the cutoffs.
On to the build.... My daughter helped me a lot today. I was really happy to spend the day with her. It was cold, but she was a real trooper. I've been guilty in the past of taking the tools out of her hand and doing it myself as its faster. I found if I slow down, explain what we're doing, and why, and let her actually do a lot of it, it peaks her interest and she likes helping for longer. We built the 6' high lower wall. 6'4.5" with the three plates included. The top 7' high wall will sit on this. This wall is about the most important of all of them. Its by far the highest, at about 13.5-14' once done. Also it will have the log rafters bearing on it, and the 4' deep implement shelf attached to it at 7' in the air. This garage will all be resting on the concrete pad. I don't want any of it relying on the shed to support it. It will be attached but really a stand alone structure for all intents and purposes. It was nice to actually use some pallets after spending most of the weekend on this. I also bolted down the PT plates. The epoxy says "sets in minutes" on the tube. If you read the back though, its says do not disturb for 4 hours, Fully sets in 24 hours at 77 degrees. Longer if colder out. So much for "sets in minutes", which is part of the reason I couldn't do walls yesterday. I let it sit for a full 24 hours. Its not 77 out, but the epoxy was pretty set. One thing I really need to do is get some stone and fill the edges of the slab. I don't want it to freeze. I hope to do that by the end of next weekend. I made this little "roof" over the old pass-through opening. Hopefully it keeps the rain out of the shed behind that opening. I need to do something similar over the electrical outlet and junction box. Next update should have most of the walls in place. The shape will really be apparent by then. The pallet portion went a lot quicker than messing around with demoing the old roof, and the prep work, but I knew that. Stay tuned.....
