Home work shops

[jteneyck]

Wen we bought this place I had my shop building put up. It's a 32' x 50' garage (basically) with 10' ceilings and 6" walls. I put in a partition wall, making the shop portion 32' x 30', then a "back room" for lumber storage, mechanical work, and odds and ends storage. This is the largest shop I've ever had and so far it's worked out good. It is heated with a gas furnace, and i have a window AC for the hottest days like the stretch we just went through. While I wish i had plumbing It's tolerable without it and in my case the cost of doing that far exceeded the value. I minimized the number of windows to have as much wall space as possible, and put a 9x7 OH door in the shop half, with a 12' x 8' OH door in the back room. Both rooms have entry doors, and there's a 42" door between them. In the pic of the rocked walls you can see the outlets are all at 52", and every other box is 240V, some 20amp and some 30 amp. The 120V outlets are all 2 gang with 2 duplexes. Light are all LED that plug into outlets, that allows me to put them wherever I want, and easily replace any fixtures that fail.

That looks like an ideal arrangement, Fred, and really well done.  I'm sure it's a joy to work in.  I might have sprung for a wood floor, though.  Oh, to have a shop at ground level.  

Is that a Dewalt 925 I see, or the slightly larger model?  

John

[fredhargis]

It's a 1030 K that replaced a 925. Most of my Dewalts I redid completely with a new paint job, this one I left in it's OEM colors. It's a great saw.

PS, my feet agree with you on the wood floor thing.

[PossumDog]

I am in a two car garage. I only have one large power tool, a bandsaw with a relatively small footprint. Aside from that there is the workbench and some rolling tool boxes. 

I share the space with other garagey items like the lawnmower and kids items, but no cars. When I lived in hurricane country I could jam all of the shop items against the walls and have enough room to move two cars into the garage. But aside from that they stay outside.

[Mr Eddie]

Wen we bought this place I had my shop building put up. It's a 32' x 50' garage (basically) with 10' ceilings and 6" walls. I put in a partition wall, making the shop portion 32' x 30', then a "back room" for lumber storage, mechanical work, and odds and ends storage. This is the largest shop I've ever had and so far it's worked out good. It is heated with a gas furnace, and i have a window AC for the hottest days like the stretch we just went through. While I wish i had plumbing It's tolerable without it and in my case the cost of doing that far exceeded the value. I minimized the number of windows to have as much wall space as possible, and put a 9x7 OH door in the shop half, with a 12' x 8' OH door in the back room. Both rooms have entry doors, and there's a 42" door between them. In the pic of the rocked walls you can see the outlets are all at 52", and every other box is 240V, some 20amp and some 30 amp. The 120V outlets are all 2 gang with 2 duplexes. Light are all LED that plug into outlets, that allows me to put them wherever I want, and easily replace any fixtures that fail.

Fred,
That's a really nice setup and a beautiful building.  I'm envious of the AC.

Lonnie

[Arlin Eastman]

As most of you guys know I worked out of a 1 car garage for a while.  Then after a few years of the squirrels eating wiring in our suv and brother in laws truck she wanted to pull our car into the shop.
We found a business who build metal shops and we had them build a 25x40 shop but 24x14 is for my bil's truck so I have a 24x28 shop.  They used 2x6's and for the build, all my area is insulated including the ceiling with R40 so it keeps it cool in the summer and warm in the winter. 
I use a window air when it gets over 90* and use a floor heater when it gets lower then 55* and it works great until less then 0 then I have to add the second one to keep it at 70*.

See link to see part of the shop

https://forums.woodnet.net/showthread.php?tid=7378618

[Arlin Eastman]

Tom, what most see in photos of a build is my work bench, which is against the rear wall of a double garage ...

Just enough space for my (now vintage) car ...



Regards from Perth

Derek

Derek  That thing with the pipes on the back is not woodworking equipment.  

[R Clark]

We bought this place in 2014.  The house was built in 2004, the shop building in the middle was put up in 2005, and the machine shed on the right was an addition in 2020.  My wood shop is the left half of the shop building.

   

Unlimited space for a wood shop is pure fantasy.  My previous shop was 1/2 of a two car garage.  I thought my space issues were a thing of the past when we moved here.  BAH!  I still have my machines mobilized, and they do get moved from time to time.  I'm not exactly good at organizing for efficiency.  Couple year old pic of the shop:

   

[Arlin Eastman]

Going to try to add pics to my earlier post.

Well heck here is my earlier post, reposted(?):

  My wood shop is a 400 square foot building behind the house. Stick construction ( PreFab TuffShed ).
Insulated, drywalled, epoxy coated floor, 60 amp electrical service. Almost all the tools are second hand,
acquired over the years.

If the pictures are any indication of your shop size you need to upgrade buddy.  
  
I do like all the walking room around your equipment. Nice shop

[Arlin Eastman]

We bought this place in 2014.  The house was built in 2004, the shop building in the middle was put up in 2005, and the machine shed on the right was an addition in 2020.  My wood shop is the left half of the shop building.



Unlimited space for a wood shop is pure fantasy.  My previous shop was 1/2 of a two car garage.  I thought my space issues were a thing of the past when we moved here.  BAH!  I still have my machines mobilized, and they do get moved from time to time.  I'm not exactly good at organizing for efficiency.  Couple year old pic of the shop:

Nice shop to Ray and room to expand too.

[JDuke]

My first shop was in a basement that only had an entrance through the kitchen of the house, and it was a rental to boot, at the time I didn’t have much money for tools so I didn’t have many.

From there I moved to another rental but with a 2 car detached garage, didn’t have much time to do woodworking in that but it was shared with cars so moving tools took as much time as building.

Then the next house was halfway across the country move was courtesy of Uncle Sam via the Navy.  At least that house was ours, but everything was in a 1 car garage with no cars.  This was the shop where my wife and I built cabinet doors and refaced an entire kitchen.
She famously came and sat on the steps into the garage one evening when the new kitchen cabinets were already in and said “sometimes having the right tool really is worth it” and I have tried to never let her forget that.

From there it was off to Galveston and a 2 car detached garage that fortunately DID NOT flood during Hurricane IKe.
Starting to accrue more tools but still some what limited.

Next was dedicated shop that was about 15x30 as I had a real income, it became crowded quickly with new tools and everything had to be mobile.

Last move 8 years ago required some time working in a 3 car garage before I had shop built, but now I have a 30x60 and since nature abhors a vacuum its very crowded and I don’t see a future without a crowded shop since I am a sucker for a good deal on tools and probably have to many.