May 4, 2007: We stumbled across this property outside of Troy Ohio with a new 60x120 pole barn (plus a 14x120 porch along one side) on 5.69 acres, and it was for sale at a reasonable price!  I started picturing my cars and tools in the building immediately.

July 29, 2007: The first Triumph visit to the future Macy's Garage location.  No, those aren't rare TR pedal cars in front of a normal sized garage!

Aug. 7, 2007: Gravel truck with the first of 290 tons of crushed limestone arrives.  That's 16 truck loads for anyone who might be doing the math.

14' tall doors and 16' eave height did not allow for dumping the gravel inside the building, so it had to be 'shot' in with a special 'slinger' truck.

Aug. 20, 2007: 6:45 AM, and the 10 man crew who will be pouring the concrete floor have arrived for a long day's work.

The first of 11 trucks arrives at 7:30 AM with a load containing 9 yards of 4000 strength concrete and fiberglass mesh.

Truck #1 drives to the rear of the building and starts pouring the fresh concrete on a 4 mil plastic vapor barrier.

Concrete trucks arrived every 20 minutes or so, just as the one before had finished dumping it's contents in the building.

The last truck containing 7 yards was empty by 11:30 AM.  The total for the 4" thick slab was 97 yards of concrete.   Finishing the floor to a slick "steel trowel" surface required the remainder of the day, and well into the night.

Sept. 22, 2007: After curing for a month, the concrete was ready to start receiving Triumph parts, parts cars, and future projects.  L/R is a TR4 tub on a TR3 rolling chassis, 1958 TR3A TS23337L, and 1962 TR4 CT611L.  More to follow!

December 12, 2007:  After a lengthy delay due to electricians, electric companies, weather, and a heavy workload of TR projects in the existing shop, we have electricity!  Dual disconnects are for 200 amp services to both the garage and the future house.

January 6, 2008: Previous owner failed to add a vapor barrier under the metal roof, which will allow condensation to form which then "rains" down inside the building.  An unseasonably warm spell allowed us to begin retrofitting a foil-foam-foil material to correct this issue.

One of the biggest obstacles to installing the insulation/vapor barrier is the height.  The eaves in this building are 16' above the ground, and the roof peak is just over 26' tall.  Rental of a scissors lift was the only way this was going to get done! 

After 4 long days, we completed installation of the vapor barrier in 1/2 of the building.  Next warm spell, we'll rent the lift again and finish this huge job.

While Chuck White and I were having fun riding the scissors lift up and down, Pete Stroble was busy installing a bird and insect screen along the eaves.  Oh the things a car habit can get you into!

April 3, 2008: Finally some warmer temps, so we rented the scissors lift for a second week and finished the vapor barrier installation in the roof.  It took another 4 full days (8 total) to complete the installation of nearly 8000 square feet of vapor barrier, and required nearly 30,000 staples to hold it in place!

April 4, 2008: Now that we've gotten the 'roof monkey' off our backs, we can get started building out the walls to hold the insulation, wiring, and drywall.  Even with working around the piles of TR parts which are starting to accumulate, it seems like we made much better progress in one day then we ever did working in the ceiling.

August 11, 2008: Making slow progress due to heavy workload at the present Macy's Garage, but work on the new shop continues, building walls and separate rooms for upholstery and body work.  I beams in the ceilings and 3/4 T&G flooring will allow plenty of parts storage above.

October 14, 2008: Yes, this is taking forever!  It's a huge building, and there's only 2 of us working on it part time.  I liked the foil-foam-foil vapor barrier/reflective insulation that we put under the roof so much that I added a layer on top of the conventional insulation.  This meant that a second stud wall had to be built in front of the first one because an air space is required under the drywall, doubling the work required.  BUT, I plan to be heating this monster for a very long time so it's worth it!

November 28, 2008: We left this office & bathroom area "open" last year when the first concrete was poured until we could work out the plumbing details with local authorities.  We won't have water until our present home sells and a new one is built next to the new shop, but with the rough-in completed we could proceed with concrete and finish construction tasks that had to be postponed without it.

Concrete trucks are back and it's deja-vu all over again!  Knowing that I'm eventually going to close in the 1680 sq. ft. "porch" on the side of the building, I decided to just go ahead and pour the concrete in this area at the same time the office/bath area was done.  Total concrete this time was a meager 26 yards, bringing my total (to date) up to 123 yards.  We now have 8900 sq ft of concrete floor, all under roof!

We'd been waiting for most of the month for the right weather conditions to pour this latest batch of concrete, and the forecast looked like the best we were likely to get for awhile, so we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best.  I've promised myself that any more concrete pours will be done at warmer times of the year!

November 29, 2008: The weather man was wrong (again), and it got colder than expected the previous night.  All of the fresh concrete was kept from freezing the first night with a layer of plastic, but we knew that wasn't going to do it for the next 4 or 5 nights until fully cured.  So 16 bales of straw were spread over the plastic first thing in the morning to help hold the heat in.  It didn't occur to me until later that this "little" area is larger than my present 30 x 50 shop!

August 17, 2009:  We've been extremely busy with Triumph projects at the "old" shop, so there hasn't been much opportunity to work on the "new" building.  Considering that there's been virtually no action on selling the current place, there's also not much incentive to work on the new building.  But we did find the time to enclose the "porch", and this "annex" which will be used for parts cars and used parts storage brings the total enclosed space up to 8900 sq. ft.

September 2, 2009:  Following another (and hopefully final) two weeks with a rented scissors lift, we have installed 2x4 stringers at a 2' spacing along the bottom of the trusses to facilitate the installation of drywall on the ceiling.  This required 140 2x4's, 12' long just to cover the 60x64 shop area.  We also had to fabricate and install new metal supports for the overhead door tracks, replacing the wood supports that had been cobbled in by the original builders.

The scissors lift was also used to help us install the foil-foam-foil insulation above the stringers we'd just installed.  Eventually we'll add a blown-in insulation above all of this.  I can finally start to see what the finished shop is going to look like!