Workshop building – have lots of space

[Carl FarringtonParticipant @carlfarrington53722]

Hi,

I am fortunate to live in a rural setting with a good amount of land, with some outbuildings already in place that we are using but that aren’t ideal. For example I can’t install a 2 post lift because the main garage/workshop building has low RSJs across it. However is it a good building, rendered breezeblock, long double-garage-like (single wide electricaly operated garage door) with sink/toilet, split into two rooms (my bit and then “woodworking” for my missus), and it has an attic space that I throw boxes and store stuff in. I’ve just about been able to get a Bridgeport style mill in there (King Rich 2000), a small workbench, my Churchill Cub lathe, a bosch wheel balancer (minus the massive hood) and I still just about have room to work on a car in there… just about.

Beyond that we have some very dilapidated shiplap sheds. They really are knackered. Doors falling off etc. I have just pulled the side off one and repaired it a bit so that it can provide some rain cover for a vintage tractor that I acquired (MF35). The other shiplap shed it so overflowing with garbage (boxes, loft insulation, and old brake discs etc.) that we can’t really get in there anymore.

and beyond that (these buildings are all sort of linked one after the other in a long line), we have 2x wooden stables and a potting shed that are in so-so condition. My missus and father in-law have just put a PVC door on the back side of the potting shed and turned it into a pottery studio. It looks great actually and the view out the PVC door is something else. Unfortunately, my plans have always been to have most/all of this knocked down and replaced with something substantial..

I have been planning to, at some point, try to start down a path of having everything (but unsure whether to keep the garage building) replaced with “the dream man-cave” or whatever (as we all do no doubt), and of course I know I am probably not going to be able to realise my dream and might get a shock when it is costed up properly or planning permission attempted, but I still want to start enquiring somehow.

The main issue I have, is I don’t know where to start, what sort of person to contact. I think I need somebody who can visualise ideas as well as knowing the planning system, and roughly estimate costs.

I want to collect more machinery of course. I would like somewhere for a 2-post lift, somewhere to store or house some cars and garden machinery, to keep a trailer inside too. I’d like to get a tyre changing machine, so I am visualising a tyre-changing corner, and, I would ideally like to have an area where I can paint without having to go through the hassle of sheeting-off / covering general workshop stuff. It would make sense to try to have an upstairs bit at least a little bit of something in the roof space.

I really am sounding like I want to have my cake and eat it aren’t I.. and of course I can’t mention “spray painting” to the planners, they will think I’m trying to start up an industrial business.

Anyway, we do have a good plot of land, and the existing buildings can be useful from a planning perspective. The setting is a bit quirky though as access isn’t great at the moment. We access the buildings from the left side which is quite tight – can just about get a car down there, but would not be ideal for driving into a workshop. The main garage workshop has the big garage door on the front and a side door on the other side facing the field.

There’s a Canadian guy on Youtube – Make it Kustom (Karl Fisher). The sort of space he has – loads of machinery for metalworking and painting etc., would be my dream.

Any ideas.. where to begin? I may want another year to save more money towards it anyway but I’m 45 now and who knows where I will be health and finance wise in my 50s so want to get on with something before then while I can.

I attach an overhead picture

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