Good idea

[thintz]

The idea for this part of the forum came from suggestions for a scheduled chat. The more I thought about it the more it became clear that this shoujld be an ongoing part of the NWW Forums.

Small shop spaces are not a passing trend. I think the forum environmant will be helpful for us to share ideas and concepts with others who are also working in a confined space. We can also post photos here that will make getting our thoughts acorss much easier.

Thanks for Wfahey and Muddy for getting this idea going!

[wfahey]

Photos of my shop (2 car garage) right now would be an example of what NOT to do. It is a mess with way too much crap in there. (Think dumping ground) I really want to gut it and start over. Insulate the walls and attic, redo the lighting and have an electrician add some additional circuits. Then again, that might make for an interesting "How-to" series.

I look forward to seeing the ingenious ways that others have used to maximize their space to accomodate vehicles, yard equipment and the ever present Christmas decorations.

Update: During dinner tonight I mentioned to the Mrs about gutting the garage and really doing a shop the right way. She gathered up the dinner plates, stuck them in the sink and said......"Let's get started!" Many hours later, we only made a dent but progress none-the-less. We have commitments all day tomorrow (Son-in-law is back from Iraq) but plan to hit it hard again on Sunday. Thanks Tom, without this thread I may not have said anything to her.

[smokey1945]

Mine are two 20 foot by 8 foot by 8 foot storage containers. I have been working around all my stuff on one of them to put up studs and rafters prior to insulating and running electrical wire. I am nearly to the point to start with the sheet insulation.

It has been a long process with all the snow we have had. Anyway when I get the one done (which will be my shop) I will start on the other (which will be for materiels and storage).

This summer I hope to put an awning between the two which will allow me to work outside in good weather.

Smokey

[wfahey]

Where are you located Smokey?

[smokey1945]

Hi Bill!
I'm in nw New Mexico. Aztec to be exact.
Smokey

[tfeni52355]

Bill/Tom,
Couldn't agree more. We need to have a small space/workshop thread.

I will be working to implement my shop plans for my two car garage which is in pretty much the same state as Bill's. Funny though, my wife is all for the upgrade since her car gets parked in there, but she didn't volunteer to help de-clutter!

I made plans up on 11 x 17 paper to scale over Christmas. My father-in-law was here and he is a retired machinist. Great to have another set of eyes and professional input! I will take pics and provide writeups. As you can see from the list below this will be a work in progress for some time and money!


Upgrades will include:

1) Main service panel upgrade from 125 amps to 200 amps with additional circuits for garage.
2) Change lighting from T-12 with magnetic ballasts to T-8 with electronic ballast. Lithonia lighting has a great program called Visual Basic to lay out the lights in 3-D. I am going to use 4' fluorescent fixtures from Lithonia that can start down to Zero Deg. F and not flicker. I already have three of them installed due to the old ones dying and they are awesome.
3) Build (WooHoo!) and install cabinets along walls
4) Purchase,build and install Cyclone Dust System from CleaVue with 6" piping in the attic and drops to key areas
5) Purchase and install Air Compressor and piping
6) Build new mobile Assembly/Work table on casters
7) Build new mobile Miter Saw/Planer station
8) Purchase and install new Air cleaner
9) Purchase and Install heat.
10) Purchase new SawStop cabinet saw.
11) Epoxy paint the floor.


My garage is already insulated and paneled. The attic floor is mostly paneled with access through folding stairs. I am going to try to get the motor, ducting and filters for the dust collection in the attic to save shop space. About half the attic is available but it is a hip roof which limits working height. We'll see.

There are 12 T-12 existing fixtures that are 23 years old and they are a nuisance with bulbs burning out constantly. The lights are on their own circuit. I have two 20 amps 120V circuits for power tool outlets.

I already have a sub-panel for an addition we put up 10 years ago and the main and sub-panel are out of circuit space. I have a low voltage license (< 300Volts) so one weekend soon I will tackle the main panel. This is actually pretty cheap at less than $250 for a new panel and breakers at Home Depot.

I have all of the cabinets laid out on sheet good templates so I am ready for purchase.

The existing dust collection is a mobile Jet DC-1200 that I roll outside and connect with flex hose to my saw and tools. This will suffice until the new cyclone system is complete.

As you can see from the list it is a complete makeover and upgrade. We are planning a kitchen upgrade once the shop is complete. I am planning on building all of the cabinets myself so I will need a professional place to work.

In the meantime I am painting the foyer, stairs and upstairs hallway so I can keep the Mrs. happy before I move on to the garage!

[muddy]

My shop is a 2 1/2 (more likely 2 1/4) car garage.
I only have use of 3/4 of the garage the other 1/4 is full of stuff for my Jeep project and a few garden equipment.
One wall has a walk through door and a window in it so it leaves me little wall space for storage on it.
The back wall has no windows or doors so I have placed a cabinet there for storage, but unfortunately I still could use more storage.
I just redid my shop this past summer and I found many things I don't like about it and I'm going to redo it again this summer.
Everything is on wheels except for my benches so when I need to make room to fit a vehicle in the garage whenever it needs maintenance, I can just wheel everything around to open a spot up.
Heres a few shots I took when I got done rearranging everything this past summer.
Sorry about the pictures being fuzzy.

This is my back wall

Yes, thats an air conditioner above the cabinets.

This is the 1/4 of the garage that has everything piled behind the woodworking equipment.


This is the wall with the walk through door and window in it.

Door is off to the left just outside of the shot.

And because I didn't take a picture of it when I took the other pictures of the shop, this one looks a little out of place.

This picture is from when I was mounting my new (used) table saw.

I only have a 10X10 area in the middle of the shop that is empty when everything is in their place.
When I need to use my bandsaw I roll it out and position it so I have room for the piece I'm cutting.
Its the same with the planer, jointer and drill press.
Once I pull out 2 pieces of equipment my empty area shrinks down and if I pull out my dust collector I start to trip over things.
I know there is others with smaller shops
This past summer I sold my motorcycle and mini-bike to make more room in the shop. Those 2 things took up about 2/12 feet of storage width. I miss my motorcycle
Lets see your pictures of your shops.

[muddy]

Update: During dinner tonight I mentioned to the Mrs about gutting the garage and really doing a shop the right way. She gathered up the dinner plates, stuck them in the sink and said......"Let's get started!" Many hours later, we only made a dent but progress none-the-less.

Make sure you hold on to that one, she sounds like a real keeper.
I mentioned to my wife last summer about "gutting" the shop and redoing it and she looked at me and said "have fun".

[muddy]

I forgot to mention in my post (thanks tfeni52355 for the reminder) I have a few upgrades that I need to do to my shop.
I already insulated the roof and the back wall but I need to do both side walls and get an insulated garage door.
My whole shop is on one 15 amp circuit in the house. I'm lucky that I don't blow the circuit every day I'm out there. I plan on upgrading to a fuse box in the garage with a couple of 220 lines, maybe more don't know yet.
I missed out twice in the past six months on some killer deals on some used cabinet saws, all because they need 220 to run. One was a Unisaw that just need some TLC it was selling for $800 the other was a Jet cabinet saw and it came with everything that you could ever want to buy for your table saw , E.G. Biesemeyer fence with long rails, board buddies, Excalibur blade guard, extension table, push sticks...etc. I priced it all out new and it was well over $3000 and the guy was selling it for $1250.
I would also like to see about raising my roof and giving me some type of attic so I can store more junk up there along with my templates and some jigs.

[wfahey]

Made a lot of progress today on the garage. I built a wood storage rack that I saw in a magazine and now all of my lumber and sheetgoods are classified and stacked neatly away. Will be moving the Bowflex to one of the empty bedrooms upstairs and then my workbench will be repositioned lengthwise in the garage. At the moment the tablesaw and router table (one unit) is offset to the side on a shopfox rail system that lets me push it against the wall when not in use and pull it to the center of the shop to accomodate large cuts. Not sure yet but I may spin it so that I can use the workbench as an outfeed table. I have a good idea now of where I need the additional electrical outlets, where I want more lighting and how I want to separate the circuits. My house was built in the 80's and the kitchen, bathrooms, outside and garage circuits are all on one GFI breaker. I hate this setup and want to break the circuit up. I also want to add an outlet near the garage door opener so I can do away with the extension cord it currently uses. Price quote for electical is steep as the present setup at the house is not to current code and any mods require me to bring it to current code. For example the main feed to the house is too close to the natural gas line and current city code requires that they be at least 4 feet from each other. The Mrs wants a new built in oven/microwave so I will have that wired at the same time the rest of the wiring is done. If only we had an electrician in the family.....