Hello everyone. As expected with the Holiday season has made progress on the barn very slow. Paint doesn't want to spread and when it does the humidity seems to make it take forever to dry. But we are gearing up for the push to finish in the Spring.

But the main focus of this post is the framing. I really deliberated as to if I should frame within the red iron or up to it, inside the building. We decided on a combination of the two. Attaching the wood to the iron was also a problem. Drilling was too time consuming, self tapping screws where a bit better. No, the best most secure method turned out to be power actuated fasteners manufactured by Remington. These babes work...end of problem. We used them to attach the 2X4 studs to the iron, and also used them to anchor the bottom plates to the concrete. Check out these shots of the framing.

The design

I think I got the idea from a having seen a television series back in the day called Dan Tanna...check it out...maybe 5 minutes worth of classic tv...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01iKDegrW_g
Whats cool about the thing is how he lived in a metal building and just drove his car right into his living room...now that is cool!!! I was impressionable.
In later years I was invited to a hanger home on some airport near Fort Worth, Texas, and really saw just how far you could go with that concept. No, or very little exterior maintenance and for the most part it would last forever...So this is where I hatched this crazy plan...the wife thought it sounded reasonable and off we went.
It isn't unheard of to build your shell yourself, but that does require a knowledge and skill of heavy equipment and fabrication with heavy iron and the like...we took a pass and just contacted a steel building contractor and layed out what we wanted. As discussed earlier, the pad took 10 days and the building around 14 days for erection. The overhead doors where specified and ordered before a single beam went up. One is 12'X10' and the other is 10'X10', roughly $1000 dollars each installed. The plan was simple I thought...buy and store building materials...bought at discount, or in quantity, and build inside out of the weather. So far it has worked...I'm the fat Dude in the picture, so the building part was a challenge. I would go from basically an airconditioned office to wearing a 30 pound tool belt and really working...on my days off from my Job...I had to go back to work just to rest...
I had some experience in all the construction trades, but not in years!!! I knew how...just took twice as long...But at least being inside we avoided being in the sun and heat and rain..
I'll try to import my plans...and give greater details in the following entries!!