Well recently ive been thinkin about renting my house out and going and buying a 10-20 acre parcel and just building a steel building shop with a upstairs living area. I would make the downstairs area a shop and storage area for my toys.. Im not sure on the size of the building though, I dont want to make it too small and regret it later down the road so I was thinking like a 120' long and 100 or so wide. What about would it cost for the building,slab and to make a full living area upstairs with insulation drywall the works basically a nice apartment? I was looking at building prices and it was around a 100k or so for the building 50k for concrete and maybe another 100k to outfit it all for living. Help me out guys I need to get out of the city anf get me some land!!!

anyone?

Depending on where you are thinking about location wise, size of building, materials etc. you could do it for $200K for you could be into it for $2 million. How big are you thinking about? Location? What type of amenities do you need/want? Budget? Sounds like a cool idea. Need more info.

Well for the shop size i was thinking around 10,000 to 15,000 sqft, im assuming the building would cost me around 80-120k (just a guesstimate) not sure on the concrete slab probaly around 50-70k? Then for the living are upstairs make fully insulated probaly with a drop ceiling 2 bedrooms and maybe an office 1-2 bathrooms basically a house inside of a shop.

And im in socal but i have a friend who is a contracter so he can cut alittle slack not much though. haha

You are probably pretty close on those estimates. Why don't you pour your own concrete and save a big chuck of change?

Ya i would like to but I have no experiance in concrete but i can always learn.

I would put the house on 1 end of the shop with bedrooms on top of living area. I had thought about doing this until I bought a home.

I see your in California, don't know how cold it gets there, but here in the Midwest, when a building gets that big, lots of times there is a cold storage side and a heated side. This way you don't have to heat the entire building during the winter. You can keep your shop/livng area heated and then let part of it be un heated for storage.

Other nice thing about what you are doing, is your property taxes should be relatively low vs. if you were to build an equivalent house and then an shed for shop.

Good luck.

Well got a qoute from empire steel for a 150x100x24 with two 16ft roll up doors 2 side doors for alittle over 64k notto bad.

Well got a qoute from empire steel for a 150x100x24 with two 16ft roll up doors 2 side doors for alittle over 64k notto bad.
Installed or just materials? I like this idea. If you live in a moderate climate then it could be a great idea. If it gets real cold in your area it might not be the best.

Thats with building plans complys with county codes and delivered and unloaded. Id probaly put it up myself, the sales guy said all the parts are number so it couldnt be that hard. The coldest it gets here in the winter is probaly around 25-30 degrees but id probaly have the living area heated and cooled. My whole plan is the build thios shop and live in it for a year or two and then build my dream house.

I had thought about doing something like this. I did think of a few problems. One being a shop/house combo if there is a fire you could lose everything. If they are separate than it's one or the other. Second problem I thought of is if you're working on the trucks late at night and the wife is trying to sleep, but can't cause you're hammering on something. Just a couple things I thought of.

Ya things like passed through my mind also, but this is only temporay till I can afford to build my dream house.

I used to work for Hammers Construction(a local firm), who built office/warehouses. It was essentially a office space in the front (which could easily be converted into living quarters) and the rest was a shop. I believe the supplier/builder was American Steel Biulding Company or something like that. I remember that we sold a lot and a 10,000 square foot building to a publishing heir and he used it soley for his car collection. But right about when I left the company they came out with a new floor plan adding a living space above the retail space in a 5,000 square foot building. I don't know if they offer it in other sizes, or just how customizable it is, but I think it is worth looking into.

Here is the website:
http://www.americanbuildings.com/