Almost three years ago we move to Texas in order to be close to our grandchildren. While we were looking for a home, we had a short list of desires:
1) more than 1/2 acre
2) room for a nice garden
3) room for a shop
We did well in the process, and bought a beautiful home on .6 acres, with a very large garden in place. But, no shop. In the past (at our prior home), I had setup my shop in our two-car garage and we parked the cars in either of the two driveways. This was fine with the milder climate of California, but here in Texas, that was not going to fly. So, we put a lot of thought into where to place a shop. We were unable to extend the existing home to the front or either side due to the required setbacks mandated by our home owners association, so we tried on a couple of different ideas:
1) We could build up, over the garage, and have a second level shop. The thought of lugging everything upstairs seemed like a real problem. My wife was also concern about noise and such.
2) We could buy the adjacent (empty) lot and form a larger overall lot, and place the shop on it. That would have wiped out my budget for the shop. By the time we had located the owner of the neighboring lot, it went on the market and sold within a week, all while we were trying to think of a way to afford it.
3) We could carve out a piece of the large garden and place the shop in the back corner of the lot. This is what we finally decided on as the best possible course (my wife had about as much of a garden as she could handle as it was). We found a contractor to build us a foundation and a simple shell, that we could finish to our needs. We were waiting, and waiting on a quote from the contractor. We finally found out the the contractor had taken off to the gulf to help rebuild homes and businesses that were destroyed in a massive hurricane. Even a year later I reached out to see if he was available, but never got a response. Recently we noticed a neighbor that had done a really nice addition to their home. When we contacted them, they invited us over to see their recent work. In a word, wow! Everything looked amazing. We got the contact information on their contractor and boom, everything was rolling. Just yesterday, we received the final OK from our home owner association, so we are ready to roll. The crew is stopping by this afternoon to check on our work and identify what else needs to happen prior to starting construction (I know we need to move the existing 10x12 shed, peel back some fencing and redirect a water line that bring water down to the garden).
Here is a rendering of the new shop. We kept the design under 600 square feet (24x24) to bypass some of the home owners association's requirements (like 75% masonry, matching the existing home), but I sure that it will do just fine.
Oh yeah, "Buzz's Workshop" is a nod to a nickname that we decided on when my wife and I got married. We each had a child from our previous marriage, and we wanted to keep things pleasant with the kids as we integrated our families. My son was older and away at college, but her daughter was living with us. As she already had a father, we joked about getting me a nickname that she could use instead of 'father' or calling me Gene. We were on a trip to Hawaii when we came across stationary shop with some samples of wedding invitations that announce the wedding of Buzz and xxxxxx. I joked that I wished I had a cool nickname like Buzz, and that is what happen. In my old garage/shop, my daughter made me a nice sign that stated "Buzz's Workshop", so that is were the name comes from.
Exciting times!
Gene
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