Shop & workspace project

[olyinaz]

I've been working around the hacienda since we moved in last December trying to make it mine. A reloading shop and a place to work outdoors (refinishing, cleaning, etc.) was one of my pet projects and I've almost got it finished. Here's a few pics.


My heated/air conditioned gun stuff shop, with front porch for stogie smokage:




Another view, with a new shed in the background, covered work space between, and the raised beds garden I had built to my designs for my wife. My next door neighbor is a general contractor and is great about doing small jobs for me while I'm away at work - he built all the sheds and the garden and did all the electrical/plumbing as well. I had a lot of floods installed and they're on a remote so my wife or I can illuminate the area while walking over to it instead of stepping on a daggum rattler:




The covered (no small thing in AZ...) work space with stainless bench and wash basin:




In progress. When I moved in the two existing sheds were in the middle of a dirt pasture with shoddy temporary horse pens around them. The shop was unfinished but had power and was a tack shed, and the small garage was a hay barn. I use the small garage for storage, but it'll fit two quads nicely, and the new shed is where my UTV is parked and it's big enough for a full sized Ranger or other large UTV.




Reloading station inside:






Ammo, bullets, primers:




Storage. The little white thing is an air filter - keeps my shop nice and clean while I'm away (the air conditioner filter helps too). The green table is a folding shooting table. Not great, but good enough for throwing in the Jeep while tooling about and I also use it for air gun shooting out back:




Here is a link to a panorama taken from the front porch of the shed, where I sit, listen to my brass tumble, and enjoy a stogie while watching the sun go down. The landscaping you see was all done by me - nothing but dirt and junk here when I moved in. My "south 40" to the left is still a work in progress...we're trying to decide...

http://www.pbase.com/olyinaz/image/151742845/original


Thanks for looking if you did. Comments/suggestions welcomed.

[PriseDeFer]

Your panorama is gorgeous, a lovely place to breathe. The sheds and interior have struck me almost dumb, to see a set up in which tools are ready to hand and things can actually be found is, for me, a dream. Thank you for proving it can be real.

[pwl44m]

Very Nice Oly I'm impressed. In looking at that panorama I would almost swear I saw a Roadrunner being chased by a Coyote.
Perry

[Griff]

A/C... it MUST be nice.

[jeepnik]

Very nice. But you know the old saying about an organized desk/reloading station. It's the sign of a sick mind, or someone with way too much time on his hands.

[Sixgun]

Geeze, I'm at a loss for words.........................

I'm at a loss for words because your style of living and the environment is 180 degrees from what I'm used to. Your air conditioners save you from the heat, ours save us from the humidity. We have gentle snakes, you guys have monsters. Big spiders too?

The new reloading building is top class, set up with organization as the priority. Do you leave the AC on 24/7? You should if you have powder and loaded ammo in there...the powder will dry out in short order. Also, try to keep the sun from hitting any components or for that matter, loaded ammo also.

Still sitting here with the same loss for words............A lot of my personal time is taken up with yard work and as I look at your pics, I see once you have something done, well, your pretty much done for a long while. I cut 2 acres every 4-5 days and the back 2 get cut every 10 days....sucks, even with a real deal cutting machine, the Kubota diesel.

You sure have things looking neat, with the stone and all the landscaping. If I was there, I would feel like a fish out of water....so different.

I really enjoyed those pics....seeing how others live in different areas. But...............you can keep those nasty snakes. -------Sixgun

[FatJackDurham]

It looks like all steel construction. How thick are the walls and how is it insulated? Do you have any solar on the roof to offset the AC bill?

I went through Phoenix once, and it was ungodly humid, if you can believe it. I wasnt expecting that. What is the weather like there? Dry, hot? Cold at night?

Nice looking compound.

[Udy]

Well you can call me jealous!
Very nice reloading room. I really want to make one like that.

[olyinaz]

Very nice. But you know the old saying about an organized desk/reloading station. It's the sign of a sick mind, or someone with way too much time on his hands.

BOTH!

[olyinaz]

The new reloading building is top class, set up with organization as the priority. Do you leave the AC on 24/7? You should if you have powder and loaded ammo in there...the powder will dry out in short order. Also, try to keep the sun from hitting any components or for that matter, loaded ammo also.

Yep! I spent extra on a heat pump unit from Amana that is rated for constant run (sort of a mini hotel room unit). Keeps it nice and cool and dry (and will heat in the winter). UV protective tint on the windows too.

Still sitting here with the same loss for words............A lot of my personal time is taken up with yard work and as I look at your pics, I see once you have something done, well, your pretty much done for a long while. I cut 2 acres every 4-5 days and the back 2 get cut every 10 days....sucks, even with a real deal cutting machine, the Kubota diesel.

You sure have things looking neat, with the stone and all the landscaping. If I was there, I would feel like a fish out of water....so different.

I really enjoyed those pics....seeing how others live in different areas. But...............you can keep those nasty snakes. -------Sixgun

It's different for sure! I'm a Minnesota boy (grew up cutting 2 acres of grass once a week...all summer long) so I wont say that I feel 100% at ease here, but everything is a trade off and for now this works. I miss lakes and woods. I don't miss cutting grass!! Our place in Minny had great views and it took me a long time to earn my way back to a home with views. I ain't ever living without a view again, God willing.

[olyinaz]

It looks like all steel construction. How thick are the walls and how is it insulated? Do you have any solar on the roof to offset the AC bill?

I went through Phoenix once, and it was ungodly humid, if you can believe it. I wasnt expecting that. What is the weather like there? Dry, hot? Cold at night?

If it was humid in Phoenix then you caught it during the monsoons. July and August. In June we had a day or two where they called the humidity at 1% and we set a record for consecutive days over 100°. So dry it hurts. Literally. This month it's been rain and more rain, with temps in the 90s. Rainy or dry, it gets cool at night here at 2800ft elevation. Very pleasant outside right now at 8:00 PM (Phoenix cannot boast of this - it stays hot up there). Winters are cold and we usually get a snow or two, but an average day is in the sixties and a 70-something day in the winter is not unusual.

The sheds are all steel (we have terrible termite issues in Arizona), 2x4 construction, standard roll-in insulation, and dry walled. I need to get up on the roof and paint it white to help minimize the heat gain. I'll use a white elastomeric roof coating.

Yes, I have solar. I have a 14,500 Watt array up on the roof, you can see some of it at the left in this picture:




It's funny that you called it a "compound". I always joke with my boys that I want to set up The Olson Compound and build houses for them to live in with their wimmin after they find a keeper. This is not far from the truth with some of my Mormon neighbors!

[Mac in Mo]

Oly,

Your place is first class as always. Just keeps getting better.

Kevin

[wecsoger]

Nicely done, but with a slight twitch of concern. Is that a spark generator (mini-bench grinder) right next to the smokeless powders on the right and flammables on the left?

[Streetstar]

looks like a piece of heaven

[olyinaz]

Nicely done, but with a slight twitch of concern. Is that a spark generator (mini-bench grinder) right next to the smokeless powders on the right and flammables on the left?

Hmm, you have a point sir! I'll have to think about this. Perhaps another buffing wheel is in order and just scrap the grinder notions in this shop given all the flammables...

(I love this forum!)

[JohndeFresno]

Very nice!

Don't forget an alarm system. Folks are getting a bit more desparate, even for reloading components.

Even without a wired, monitored system, you can find some decent setups that set off loud local alarms.

[olyinaz]

Very nice!

Don't forget an alarm system. Folks are getting a bit more desparate, even for reloading components.

Even without a wired, monitored system, you can find some decent setups that set off loud local alarms.

Yep!

[DadsMod12]

Oh my, I'm jealous! Someday, if we ever move, I hope to build something similar.

[92&94]

Nice looking shop Oly, man are you stocked!

I used to shoot off the Rail X road, in the 1980's/1990's, before Catalina sprawled out enough for that to be dangerous. Turns out a friend of mine knows the guy who owns that quarry at the end of the road, I got to go out and look it all over a few years ago.

Quail hunting up that way is probably still fantastic too....

AZ can definitely get humid. I remember one summer when we lived in a house with only a swamp cooler, I left a pair of boots in a corner with no air flow and they got moldy within a week