Darren's Shop

You going to pack the whole thing up and move to the farm? That is awesome space and the job looks great.
David
Some day I will, but that is still a ways off at this point. Her grandfather has decided to move back home, her grandmother is still at the nursing facility, so we've got a little more time before we move down there. We're in no rush, we would prefer to have him there and enjoying it. We're still going to be going down to work on things and help him out. Will be nice getting to be able to talk with him about things regarding the farm and get more history on it.
 
I spent a good part of the day making room for some of the upper cabinets I've had sitting in the corner. Looking at them stacked up gave me an idea.

I ended up framing up some bases and using them as a stacked unit
2020-08-08 17.17.54.jpg

and some additional storage at the back end of the cnc.
2020-08-08 17.18.01.jpg

I also cleared out a spot her GG-Grandfather's hardware cabinet, which has been buried behind several of the uppers I had stacked.
2020-08-08 20.11.04.jpg

I'll start working on the hardware cabinet soon. I need to replace all the drawer bottoms in the bottom drawers, then pickup some mahogany to fix a few of the broken fronts. i plan to use it for hardware storage myself for now
 
You'll love the drill press sucker. I would find it hard to go back to blowing chips out of the way myself or just letting them pile up and foul things.

It got some use last night, and did a really nice job. Kind of wondering how one of them would do riding on the cnc's z-axis for times I'd like to keep an eye on the cuts rather than trying to follow along with the shop-vac.
 
It got some use last night, and did a really nice job. Kind of wondering how one of them would do riding on the cnc's z-axis for times I'd like to keep an eye on the cuts rather than trying to follow along with the shop-vac.
They have things called 'Dust Boots'. As long as they don't go up and down with the z axis, they work pretty well, lol.
 
Well, time to put some closure on this thread. A 40 yard, and previously a 30 yard, dumpster later. A 10' x 40' storage unit, and it's getting somewhat empty in there. It never became what I hoped it to be, but certainly learned a few things and enjoyed it while it was mine. I've got about 4 trailer loads to move from it yet, a couple to storage, and a couple to the farm. I still have a few weeks to get that done though.
20210828_202511.jpg
20210828_202540.jpg

The next one will be closer to Glenn's level of planning. Heh, we'll let's be honest, none of us will even get that close, but you know what I mean. ;)
 
The next one will be closer to Glenn's level of planning. Heh, we'll let's be honest, none of us will even get that close, but you know what I mean. ;)
That will be a thread I will look forward to with great anticipation. Not only to satisfy my "shop build" posts enthusiasm but also knowing you have reached that woodworker nirvana of being able to build your "dream shop". You deserve it!
 
Last edited:
Thanks guys.

I think some lessons learned are good to share and document. So here are some of my top ones.

We grow into our spaces. Absolutely true and to a fault for me. When I first moved in there most of my tools fit in about 1/3rd of the space comfortably. We were pretty much broke most of the time when we first bought the place. My wife wasn't bringing in much money with her commission only job at the time and all of the extra money was going towards the house. Many of the old cabinets and fixtures from the house ended up taking up space in the shop as we didn't have a good way to get rid of that stuff or pay for a dumpster. I also went through a phase of buying stuff at one of the local on-line auction sites. That lasted a few months and though I got some usable things, much of it was junk that just ended up sitting round the shop and adding the the mess. Then you have the kids moving in/out every so often and the stuff they leave behind. I still had about a dozen boxes from each of them.

I'm not just a woodworker, so my shop needs to be multipurpose. Most of my woodworking at this house was more for house projects and remodeling. I do hope that I can do more furniture, gifts, and fun projects in the next shop. I do plan to have more defined spaces as well as the entire shop insulated for heating and cooling. I had put in a wood stove for the winter, but without insulation working out there was limited to when it was 50 or above. As Bill mentioned, having some space for projects would be nice, but also leaves room for project to not get finished, taking up space. So I want to be focused on finishing what I start too. The next shop will be divided up and have walls and rooms from the start. Mostly to control dust, but also cooling/heating and pests.

Plenty of storage and organization. I was a little late on getting any organization going. I certainly tried a few times. The first few years, tools were still in boxes on the floor and I rarely knew where any were. From time to time I'd buy a shelving unit and get some of the boxes moved up on a shelf. I spent a lot of time digging through boxes to find tools I knew I had. I did try the french cleat system and building some organizers for the tools on the wall. That actually worked very well and wish I had done more of it and will plan for it in the next shop. The last attempt at adding lots of cabinets worked somewhat, but I bought way too many and they ate up much of the space I had for working on projects. However, the biggest issue was not putting things away, it's a hard lesson to learn. Given a lot of my projects just required tools elsewhere I would just grab what I needed and eventually bring back a pile of tools and leave them on the bench from time to time.

Make the space inviting. Between the mess, spiders/pests, and lack of heating/cooling I've been about the only one that tolerates being in my shop for long. I really want to get my grandkids involved in hobbies and my wife wants a space of her own for crafts. I want to encourage her to do hobbies, currently she doesn't or if she does, it takes up our dining room table. The farm house isn't going to have a lot of extra room for a craft space for her. I've also gotten a lot of grief over the years about disappearing and spending too much time in the shop, yet coming to the shop isn't inviting for her, mostly due to the reasons stated.
 
I'm not just a woodworker, so my shop needs to be multipurpose
Having separate wood and metal spaces would imho be huge. I'd also like a separate but slightly attached to the metal space blacksmith shop while I'm at it. I do think there's a lot of value in adjacent spaces and accessibility between the spaces but enough isolation to keep the dust & cross contamination down would be super useful.

Given a lot of my projects just required tools elsewhere I would just grab what I needed and eventually bring back a pile of tools and leave them on the bench from time to time.
One thing I've kind of half done, but should do more of is task specific tools. This also goes along some with organizing the place to have task specific spaces. For instance I have all of the wrenches the tablesaw needs at the tablesaw. My storage for this leaves a LOT to be desired and I don't have all storage laid out for all of the other table saw parts (inserts, blades, etc..) which I should have. But where i have done this it has made things a lot better. I really really need to do more of this. You do end up with some duplicate tools but you can also focus and invest in fewer quality tools where you need them instead of a bunch of junk in a pile (so guilty).

We've talked some about having a "crafting" room either above part of, or adjacent to the shop. Some of my other work in leather and non-ferrous metals overlaps some with loml's fiber arts so having those spaces adjacent but non-interfering (so we can each have our own workbenches in those spaces) would be nice. I tend to carry things back & forth from the other shop for some of the metal working as well so either more task specific tools that don't leave the space or possibly better access between the spaces.
 
Top