Something like 3 months and 6 days from the time the wiring was complete (I've been filling the trench by hand, pretty much) and a good nine years from when I first tried to get it done (long tedious story I don't want to go over) I finally have electricity to my shop building (which has been a-building since 2003, as the location shifted after power attempt 1 in 2000).

It's a long way from over, but a good step, anyway. Onward to heat, of some sort. Merely having light   without running a generator will be a nice change.

I'll put images in here for a limited time. It's an ugly unfinished thing, but it's mine, not the bank's.

Time's up. Images down.

I've been in crappy dark shops - I hate them.

Glad you finally got the juice!  That looks like a nice size workshop, how big is it?   

-Jessie

24x48x11.5 (down) & 24x48x8 (up)

Well, really 22'8"x46'8" on the inside, after you subtract 8 inch structural insulated panel walls. Not spending a bunch on heat is good in Vermont. This sucker, when complete, will heat on a small waterheater (and hopefully will do a lot of its heating from solar panels yet to be installed - and a few more trees will leave to help with that).

The slab is fully insulated and has radiant heat tubing installed. The frostwalls are also fully insulated (as you see happening in the first pic).

If I had it to do over, I'd lose the economies of "One roof, one foundation, and one floor between that won't face the cold directly" - there are economies there, but the whole 20 feet to the eaves thing really slows things down, especially when it's mostly being done by myself, with occasional bursts of actually getting a hand from someone (or a lot of people, for some parts). Also, stairs eat interior space, and construction time/fuss.

That's awesome. It's gotta be nice to have enough land to decide you want a work shop. I went from thinking "oh, that'll be a nice sized workshop for random stuff" in the first picture, to "good god that's huge!" in the second picture. If I decided I wanted my own shop I'd have to take over the pool across the street, and the neighborhood kids wouldn't be too happy about that when summer rolled around. I'd settle for a nice wide door and some real windows in my current basement, but that's not gonna happen. I'm just gonna keep squeezing the GS through that skinny basement door.

I accepted a long time ago that I'll never be happy on a 1/4 acre lot. Even an acre cramps my style, especially if there are neighbors all around (ahhh!  Suburbia...nooooooo!).

This comes with pluses and minuses, but for me I can't handle cheek-by-jowl, so I just accept that I'll never have water, sewer, or gas provided by someone else, though I have lived in places where you could be rural and still get natural gas - but not here. The road I'm on is dirt and turns to mud in spring. My driveway is 700 feet long and requires a fairly serious commitment and equipment to maintain, but having bought acreage, I was darned if I was going to build right on the road like I had a 1/4 acre lot - especially since the good view is down back. As it happens, that saved some serious change on the septic system, but I would have done it anyway. I have one neighbor in shouting distance, and a few that own abutting land but don't actually have buildings anywhere near my land. Hopefully the abutting land never turns into (Name of trees that have all been cut down / name of terrain that's been bulldozed flat / name of wildlife that's been wiped out) developments.

One night in late November as I was giving up on shoveling because it was too dark to see, I heard a rustling as I walked back to the truck. The sky was still light enough to make out big lumps in the trees - a flock of wild turkey, roosting for the night, about 100 feet from the shop.

I grew up in the suburbs(my neighborhood was named "The Woodlands), my wife grew up a couple miles out where you can still get everything you need piped in, but they still have some land, wild animals, half dirt road, and what houses are there are blocked out by the trees. We live in the city now, so it's more about convenience instead of land. I'd be happy to settle for a double garage and a decent sized fenced in yard for the kinda stuff I do. A huge yard would be nice for the dogs, but they survive without it.

As far as Turkey, I do see them frequently in 2 different places in the city, one of which is the back of a parking lot, under a bridge, between a road and the busway, so why they choose to hang out there I have no clue. Either way they've been known to chase cyclists on a regular basis, haha.

Very cool 

More pics!!! lets see the inside 

At the moment, the inside looks like a clusterfuck crossed with a sh!tstorm.