Steve Pitts, Milan, Ind., and his wife, Donna, invested in a new shop in 2022. They also wanted office space without sacrificing lots of working space. How could they achieve both goals?
“The answer was enclosing a lean-to on one side of the building,” Pitts says. “That left all the rectangular space available for working on equipment and or storing seed.”
Pitts needs seed storage because he is a dealer for Stewart Seeds. But he also farms, so the rest of his 73-by-120-foot shop is devoted to equipment repair or storage.
The 12-foot-wide, enclosed lean-to runs along 100 feet of the building. A wood-fired furnace occupies outside space in the offset between the lean-to and the end of the building. Lean-to space nearest the outside furnace will become a utility room.
“The manifold for our in-floor heating system is against the west wall, and we will enclose it,” Pitts explains. He adds that about half of the total run of the lean-to will become office space.
The remaining part, open to the main building, will become extra room for the shop.