Lets Talk about shops

I'm getting in on this thread a little late - been kinda busy the past several days for some reason.

As my interest in advanced woodworking grew, I added "necessary" tools to my collection to the point that my shop occupied our entire two-car garage in Florida. Of course, I used a lot of mobile bases and carts to enable me to shuffle things together at night so LOML could get her car inside. Here's what I ended up with there: FL_Shop

Part of our criteria for a place in Georgia was a) a place with an existing shop building; or b) plenty of space to build a shop. I found the perfect place on my first trip to Thomasville and neither of us regret the move. As to the specifics of the shop, there was an existing 16x24 building with a gambrel roof, so it also had a loft.

I had already envisioned most of the basics of the layout of a new shop, but I kept massaging the layout on my computer. LOML added her critique to my layout and kept pushing me to add more space to the addition to the existing building than I had originally wanted. Of course, she was right to encourage me to add a few more feet - it has come in real handy! I spent six months on the layout process before hiring a crew to pour the slab. This is the result of that process: GA_Shop

I'll summarize some key factors now:

  • Plan - nobody else can tell you how to build YOUR shop. You know what you want to do, so take the time to plan.
  • Work flow - what do you do and how do you do it? For instance, I allowed for outfeed support for my tablesaw, but also added side support so it's easier to handle sheet goods. It's not wasted space, as I have my router table built into one of the side support tables.
  • Electrical - allow for plenty of circuits. I had an electrician run 100A service from the distribution panel on the side of our house to a 30-position subpanel in my shop. Dedicated 220V circuits feed the large tools. All of my 110V circuits are mounted 50" above the floor and are 48" apart on the wall. Each wall is on a seperate breaker.
  • Benches/cabinets - solid oak might be nice; use it if you have deep pockets. All of my shop tables/benches are 3/4" MDF, doubled if necessary. Drawers are mostly 1/2" Sandee ply.
I could probably go on all day, but will stop for now.
 
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