Ever see a magazine cover story with a title like Dealing with a Small Bathroom? Then you open the magazine and flip to the article and see that their idea of a “small bathroom” is a bathroom that only has room for one large easy chair beside the double sink and whirlpool tub, because the standalone sauna takes up too much room. How ever will they survive with only one large easy chair?
Looking for information on small workshops is the same. “Mine is only 1200 square feet, come see how I deal with the cramped conditions.” Pfft.
My shop is a 12 by 11 room with one large corner cut off, losing me about a quarter of the space. It looks like this:
Note: I didn’t tidy for this. I was taking pictures of another project and decided to take some of the shop for posterity and insurance. Then I decided to share them. Getting it “show ready” would take a few hours that I don’t have or want to spend, you see it way the shop is most of the time.
The diagonal wall has a wood storage rack and shelves full of plastic peanut butter jars that I use for screw and nail and parts storage, and pegboard. I love peanut butter jars and pegboard. The wood rack is for dimensional lumber, though it often has a few larger pieces of sheet goods leaning against it waiting to be used. Here, the upstairs bathroom floor is propped up waiting for the walls to be painted.
The wood rack is just 2x4s mounted to the wall with toggle bolts. The 2x4s have 1″ holes bored through them, and I inserted lengths of 1″ dowel that I rounded off on the router table. They aren’t glued in the holes so I can reorganize the shelving if I need it by moving the shelf supports. That would involve actually cleaning it off, though, so I don’t think I’ll ever bother.
Looking in the door to the back wall, you can see that my bench is actually just kitchen countertop scraps on old kitchen cabinet bases.
On the left of the drawers are two stacks of large Rubbermaid bins labelled “Electrical”, “Plumbing”, “Drywall”, “Painting” and “Infrequently Used Tools”. There are some half-sized Rubbermaid bins labelled “Cabinet Hardware”, “Caulking” and “Electronics”. Also on that side under the bench is my Router Table, which gets pulled out and placed on the table saw to use.
Drawers (behind the table saw in the above pic) are labelled, from top to bottom, “Measuring and Marking”, “Sandpaper”, “Drilling and Grinding” and “Small Power Tools”.
The right hand side under the bench is miscellaneous stuff. Drop cloths, garbage bags, unfinished projects, etc. I haven’t really organized this side yet.
The right end of the bench is work space. Above the bench is pegboard with hand tools. The left end is bench tools: the bandsaw, drill press, band/disk sander, bench grinder and scroll saw. Above and behind the bench tools is the paint collection, all the colours that we have used in various places for various things around the house.
Being a basement shop, dust control was very important. I didn’t want that fine dust to make its way through the whole house. I have a ceiling mounted air cleaner and a large capacity dust collector from General International to help with that.
Looking left from the workbench past the bench tools, you see them along the wall, more pegboard, clamp storage and sheet goods storage (under the drywall T-square). I can’t keep a half sheet of plywood. If I need that much I have to cut it to smaller size as soon as I buy it.
Looking up, you can see the switch I wired in for the dust collection. I’m 5’11″, so this switch is the perfect height and place for me when I am standing at the table saw. You can also see the house central vac unit, which I don’t use in the shop. It’s just most convenient place to hang it.
You can also see some of the unfinished ceiling. I wouldn’t want it finished. I store a load of stuff up in the floor joists.
The floor is linoleum over concrete (easier to sweep and keeps the dust down) and the walls are drywalled and insulated for noise.
The back of the door is covered in small spring clamps to hold work gloves for the 7 of us and aprons and such. Beside the door is a rack similar to the wood rack, but with the dowels angled. Nice and strong for holding extension cords.
The shop is too small to run a dust collection tubing system, so I just have one 8 foot length of 4″ tubing for the table saw, and one 10 foot length of 2 1/2″ tubing for bench tool dust collection (I need another couple of feet, this one is a bit short). I use the Veritas Dust Chute on the 2 1/2″ hose, because the magnet on the end is handy. I can hang it up out of the way just by sticking it to the house ducting in the ceiling. I switch between hoses using a homemade manifold/separator. It catches the big pieces before they go to the dust collector, and lets me easily pick which collection hose to use:
I finally feel like the shop is getting to an organized point where I can use it and find things and not spend half my time shuffling things around. Thanks for looking.
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2 comments ↓
Hi Kirby,
This is the most organized shop that I’ve ever seen. I know a few guys who would be envious.
[...] by: “paintball luvr” Submitted on: 2010/07/11 at 11:07pm Comment on: “The Basement Workshop” post. Comment [...]
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