Ready To Expand

It's a shop Tom and Tina Favero built in 2019 to bring everything home, to consolidate maintenance and storage, to serve as headquarters and, on a second floor, to create a craft and meeting room.

The Faveros operate a third-generation farm around Ogden, Utah, 45 minutes north of Salt Lake City -- irrigated grass hay and alfalfa, with wheat as a rotation. The couple once operated a produce operation -- sweet corn, squash, watermelon and pumpkins sold to supermarket warehouses -- but no more.

Their homeplace is within sight of the Wasatch Mountains and within earshot of the F-35 and F-16 fighters flying in and out of nearby Hill Air Force Base.

"This is a nice place to work," Tom says sitting inside his shop, hot outside but comfortable in here. "I can get some relief to get away from the rest of the farm at night, to get out of the heat and mosquitoes."

The Faveros' 40- x 100-foot building is deep enough for semis. It was designed with expansion in mind (if building prices ever come down, Tom says). The south wall of the building includes a 20-foot-wide by 14-foot-tall area framed with steel I beams. With the panels removed, the opening will connect the existing building with any future new structure. The south end of the shop is now dedicated for pallet racking and storage.

"We needed this storage," Tina says. "We were out of room. I really like the way it turned out. I like the rustic look, the way it's laid out."

HONOR FARM LEGACY

This shop features bits of family heritage. "We knew that we wanted to incorporate some of the materials that we had saved from the original buildings on the property. Once we started, it evolved into a fun, creative project," Tina explains. A large section of the interior wall at the north end of the building and the upstairs craft room are finished with rusty tin, barnwood and a scattering of old farm tools. "We incorporated an old manger board from the dairy barn once on this land at the top of the stairs (to the craft room)," she says.

Tom built his shop with a steeper-than-normal 3/12 pitch on the roof instead of a 1/12 pitch more common in the area. "I like the steeper look, and I didn't want it to look like a metal building," he says. "It gave us more room for the loft, craft room, too."

The concrete was a monolithic pour. The footings, pillars and floor were all laid down with a single pour. The floor is sealed.

The shop is fully insulated, lined with 3/4-inch painted-white plywood, equipped with three heaters and central air (upstairs). Lighting is supplied by high-bay LED lights inside. LED lighting outside illuminates the gravel apron around the front and side of the building.

The heating system was installed with the future in mind. The furnaces require 1/2-inch pipe for gas. Instead, Tom plumbed them with 1 1/2-inch pipe all the way to the back, south end of the shop. "We have plenty of volume if we decide to put in more heaters and need more gas down the way [in a future expansion]," he says.

STRATEGIC DOORS

Two overhead doors give entrance to the shop. One is 16 feet wide; the second is 24 feet wide. The doors are 14 feet tall, and there is 16 feet to the eve. A bank of high windows in the doors brings natural light into the shop. The shop also has two all-important service doors. The main service doors are set off with a nicely designed timber-framed entry.

"The doors give us access to about any direction in the building, sideways, forward, backwards," Tom says.

Space between the overhead doors is home to a 5-hp, 60-gallon, two-stage Quincy compressor sitting on a sound-absorbing rubber pad and a waist-high rolling toolbox. Tom plumbed the compressor area with two air lines. One has 3/8-inch pipe and 50 feet of hose to operate tools such as a 1/2-inch impact wrench. The other line is 1/2 inch, 50 feet of hose to run bigger air tools, such as a 1-inch impact gun. Tom brought a 220-volt line there for welding, too.

HOBBY ROOM

The upstairs craft room features a large island and countertop for a sewing machine and workspace. A pair of closets offer plenty of storage. "The hobby room allows me to get everything out from under my bed. It gives me space to do leather work and other projects," Tina says. "I was busy up there during COVID making masks and doing other projects."

Floor space under the craft room is lined with storage cabinets mounted above steel countertops. A pair of rolling, high-top worktables (with drawers and hog wire lower shelves) are space for meetings or to serve as rolling work surfaces. A large rolling toolbox holds tools for work done in the middle floor spaces. A bathroom boasts an authentic, rolling barn door. Inside is a toilet and sink, cabinets, washer and dryer, table and tankless water heater.

Any changes he might make?

Tom can see now that it would have been better to make the shop a few feet deeper. "Forty feet fit the area we had because there was an open irrigation ditch outside," he says. "And, we built the building before we filled in the ditch. We should have piped the irrigation ditch and got it out of the way. I would have built this 50 feet wide instead of 40."

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