14 months ago I announced with pride that I had received a building permit for a new shop to be built on my friends’ property here in San Luis Obispo County. It had taken about two years to get that permit, and a with a eye-watering payment for the permit, I had it in-hand.
And then it was rescinded. And I had to re-apply. That had something to do with the Scenic Highways and Railways Act, a local ordinance that prevents people like me from building buildings like this in sight of scenic roads and railroads in our area. I spent a few days with my camera, walking the roads and the rails nearby, taking photos in the direction of my wanna-be building. Fortunately there was a large copse of trees between me and the proposed site, so eventually the County said, “OK.”
That was in September, 2024.
By the end of October I had the permit. Then we entered rainy season, so we waited for a break, then staked the site in February, 2025. The tractors were lined-up and ready to begin grading when the landowner (and my dear friends) had second thoughts about the location. So we stopped.
This is me in my shop, a photo taken in 2023. In the left-rear is the Avid CNC machine, and I’m standing in front of my beloved Powermatic 14-inch tablesaw. This week we moved everything out and into a storage container. In a few months I’ll move all of it again to the new building being built now.
In April, 2025 I returned to the County and applied for a revised permit, this one showing the building 200 feet north of the original spot. Approval of that minor change cost only $140, and took only five months to get. For three of those months it was lost in a County official’s junk mail folder.
In September I contacted my contractor to tell him to move forward with the project at the new spot. He didn’t call back. I texted; I wrote e-mails; I went to his office. He was gone. So, I hired a newer, better contractor, and started over.
We broke ground on December 5, 2025, with 150 cubic yards of non-expansive soil being delivered to the site, along with a couple of massive earth-movers.
This isn’t a very big job. The finished shop building will be 40 x 40 feet. The grading expert dug a hole that looked like a swimming pool, then he pushed the non-expansive soil into the hole, then drove a sheep’s-foot (a 13,00 pound waffle-shaped roller) back and forth until the soil was compacted to 104 lbs. per cubic foot. A soils engineer stood-by with a clever nuclear instrument to measure the compaction until it was done.
Then it rained. And rained and rained.
So, here we are in January, 2026, and the building site is now being excavated for underground dust collection, electricity and compressed air. Pipes of three sizes are now under the surface, and the special soil has been replaced over them.
Here you can see the electrical conduits running underground. These were covered in about an hour after I took this photo. In the coming days there might be concrete poured here.
Today, the concrete engineer is digging the footings for the steel building. It’s exciting!
So, just 27 months later (plus the two years the building parts sat waiting for the first permit), we’re in the midst of some real construction!
This is the same shop, from about the same angle as the one at the top of this post. It took me 20 years to build and populate the shop. Now this room is (nearly) empty. All of it is stored in a 40-foot container at the new shop site.
Concrete may be poured soon (maybe next week?) and soon the pad will be ready for the erection of my building. That will be quite fast, with the builders spending just days to change a huge pile of steel (11,000 lbs.) into a finished structure. I’ll post more on this later.
A couple of weeks ago I rented a 40-foot container and had it delivered to the new site. It will house my tools and shop supplies until the new building is ready (several months). And, last Friday my friend Tim and I started moving the existing shop to the container.
I hired a couple of young (strong) men to help, and with a pallet jack, a rental truck and three days of work, we moved all the machines out and put them into the container. Sounds easy, but it was exhausting.
With just lumber left to sort and transfer (and discard!), the move is almost complete.
