The Little Metal Shop began its existence in Fall of 2004. With a 40' x 60' barn, I felt there was lots of room for a shop somewhere inside. There was a 100 amp panel nailed to a oak post on the right front wall, so that looked to be to be where the shop should be. Unfortunately the granary occupied the same area and it had to be tore out. The granary was built out of rough cut 4x6 red oak posts and beams. Everything nailed to the beams and posts had to be cut, beat or ripped apart. It was a major job. Even worst was the fact that there was 6' of junk stacked up on top, which had to be removed. And even worse than that was the mice, mice shit and dust. I can not even count the number of displaced mice I rooted out during the tear down process. However in the end I was able to fill an 8' x 6' x 20" dumpster with the debris The only things I salvaged from this were the oak posts and scrap metal, everything else went. When it was all said and done, I had an 16' x 24' area cleared down to the floor. The first problem I noticed was the uneven floor. It was really bad. There was an 8" difference between the center of the barn and the lowest point. This was going to to make construction difficult. I started out laying down 2 layers of 4' x 8' Oriented Strand Board (OSB). This sub floor smoothed out the bumpy boarded surface. The next step was to set my DeWalt Rotary Laser Lever. I put up a 2x4 post at the high point in the barn and set the level. Building a level wall on a wavy floor was going to be a challenge. I started out by scabbing together two 2x4x8's into a 12" floor plate, then nailed 2x4's on 16" centers to it. Then stood it up and lag screwed the plate to the floor. The floor plate then took on the contour of the floor. I then screwed stringers across the studs to hold the floor plate shape. The rotary laser was fired up and all the vertical studs marked. The floor plate was unscrewed and laid on the floor. The tops of the studs were cut and a top plate nailed on. OSB board was nailed to the outside of the wall and 25 mil plastic sheet covered that. The wall went back up, screwed back down, final nailing done and the lag screws removed. This process was repeated until all the vertical walls were complete. I set a center post and dropped a two piece center beam down the middle of the shop. From there I just fabricated a flat roof or 2x4's and OSB sheeting, covered in plastic. At around mid 2006, I began running out of space and an expansion project was on the board. I began by clearing another 16' of junk from behind the shop and laying down an additional 16' x 16' of OSB sub floor. I then broke out the Saws-all and cut the rear wall completely out. then drug it to the rear of the barn. Then off to fabricating walls and roof. The shop is now 16' x 40'.