Maker

Power I needed 240 volts to run the heater and welder, and 120-volt receptacles placed at frequent intervals along all walls on two separate 20-amp, GFI-protected circuits. This ensures a plentiful, safe supply of electrical power to all tools.

Building the Barrage Garage

My first task was to site the structure. Where should the workshop go?

Initially I considered placing the shop in my basement. Possible, but this would involve far too many compromises. The basement is a low-ceilinged space with marginal access via a narrow stairway. The thought of carrying tools and materials up and down, turning corners, and so forth quickly dissuaded me.

Instead I turned to the nearly forgotten space along the alley in back of my home. Separated from the rest of my yard by a chain-link fence, it was covered with 25-year-old lilac bushes. I loved those fragrant, beautiful spring blossoms, but the space those lilacs grew upon was workshop-perfect: it had room, privacy, and access. So, goodbye lilacs.

City ordinances allowed me a maximum of 240 square feet for the shop. With the city building permit obtained, it was time to push some dirt.

PUSHING DIRT

It all starts with a level floor. Every workshop, atelier, pole barn, or garage must have a level floor if great things are to be made in it. It has always been this way. Four thousand years ago, in the reign of the great Egyptian pyramid builders, construction techniques were rudimentary. Imhotep, legendary architect of the pharaohs, had only knotted measuring ropes stretched taut between stakes, plumb bobs, and sighting sticks.

But Imhotep gave the pharaohs the tools to build monuments capable of withstanding 50 centuries of desert sandstorms. He did that by starting with a perfectly level floor. It’s believed that the Egyptians leveled the area under a pyramid by cutting a shallow grid of trenches into the bedrock, then filling them with water. Knowing that the height of water within connected trenches would be at exactly the same level, the workers hacked out the intervening islands of stone and sand with hoes and stone drills.

The Barrage Garage has a flat floor as well, but my excavators used a 75-horsepower backhoe and modern surveying tools including transits and lasers. My end result is pretty much the same as Imhotep’s: a perfectly level slab placed in exactly the right spot.

34 Make: Volume 12