PROJECT OVERVIEW

Woodworker’s Hobby Center

Texas Steel Buildings

A Woodworker’s Hobby Center.
Dwayne Austin had the love of woodworking passed down to him from his father.

So it was somehow appropriate that when Dwayne decided to build a hobby shop where he could woodwork as an adult, his Dad was there for him once again.

“I’ve been working with wood since I was 12 because of my Dad,” Dwayne says. “He was always big into woodworking. I made all my own kitchen cabinets, and I love to do other things, like knickknacks, some furniture, whatever.”

Dwayne bought an Allied Steel building to put in a woodworking shop on his property in Groves , Texas . And when it came time to put the building up, his father Carl went the extra mile-literally-to help Dwayne.

“Dad would drive up on weekends from his home in Lafayette , La. to help out,” Dwayne says. “It meant a lot to me because that’s a two-and-a-half hour drive up here to Groves .”

For Dwayne, the entire experience of researching, buying and constructing a building was a learning process. But one that he says was made easier by his decision to buy from Allied Steel.

“I had never bought a building before, so I appreciated how easy Allied made the process,” he says. “And it helped that a friend of my dad’s works on metal roofs and he knew about Allied as being a good company. That has definitely been my experience. I didn’t know what I was doing but everything worked out even better than I expected.”

Dwayne says he ordered the building, but had delivery of it held off for nearly a year. He says, “I was just getting quotes, so when I was able to put in my order, I didn’t need the building just then.”

The 20- by 24-foot structure has 12-foot walls, so there is plenty of room for his tools, equipment and raw materials, as well as space for other storage.

The building was erected in May of 2004. Dwayne hired a local contractor to pour the slab for him. The building is situated in the backyard on his property.

His father would make the drive to Groves on weekends during the construction. Dwayne then would often work on it himself on weeknights after getting off work, where he is a control systems specialist for the Total Petrochemicals refinery in nearby Port Arthur .

“I had never done it before, but it turned out better than I expected,” he says. “We put the building up in about two weeks.”

He’s also proud of the flourishes he added to the building.

“The room is divided up with a bathroom and six-foot storage closet 15 feet across the back wall,” he says. “And I made the ceiling of the storage closet only eight feet tall, so that left me with a four-foot loft up there. It’s nice.”

Dwayne says, “I used to work out of a small building that was pretty much falling apart . so this is great!”