Tiny shop ideas

I know tiny houses are a big fad now but I have the house. Now to build a shop. I am allowed 120 square feet. Period. The shape is also limited and given all the perimeters and restrictions, I have that worked out to 119.8 square feet. Here is the shape.


The side entry leads to a 3' required breezeway between the shop and house. Expect tp use that space for SCMS which is on a portable base.

The jog in the left wall accommodates a require 3' easement to get around the stairs into the house.

Th opening at the bottom allows infeed to the table saw, extra room around the floor standing drill press, and ingress/egress to power tools on wheels. This whole structure sits under the carport, so plenty of assembly area outside of the shop and under cover. The band saw will sit next to the side opening to the left as you go in. The drill press will sit next to the bottom opening just to the left. Everything else is on wheels.

The exterior walks will go to the top of the carport allowing a storage deck over the side opening along that entire wall and another over the bottom door.

I think I have met all the requirements of the park.. Will go for approval this week. If that is a go, then the build is pretty straight forward and then the fun begins.

So your job, if you are up to it, is make suggestion about clever storage and primary tools to include. Here is the list to choose from, in no particular order: Radial arm saw, bench top planer, Performax sander (24"), floor standing spindle sander, welding cart, metal cutting band saw, floor standing oscillating edge sander, mortiser, air compressor, assorted shop vacs, vacuum pump cart, buddy cart, fold up tables, saw horses, 2 rolling tool boxes, 5 4 drawer file cabinets, and jointer. Obvisouly, it will not all fit and there is a 4'x2' CNC coming.

I also have a side room on the house that can be used for shop purposes, so that is area 2. Here is the task at hand. Which tools should be in the shop, which is area 2, and which are going to be on the sales block. (The lathe is already for sale). I expect tp use the shop for making myself furniture for the house.

I need to resolve this issue because the next planning is for electrical which will/required to done by a licensed electrician. The table saw and the CNC require 220V. Everything else is 120V.

This is what is on hand. Doesn't mean some things can't go or be further downsized. So let's have your thoughts, if this were your problem to solve.

Wheels - everything on wheels.

Double duty - whatever can double as a benchtop, or be stored under a bench is a must. Rack storage in corner. Small benchtop tool can be integrated into a vertical rack system and used on an "as needed" basis, and stored in a corner rack. Overhead storage.

I'm guessing you will work in some windows around the sides. Just wondering if your sides have to be traditional studded walls? I'm thinking that if not, perhaps work in some areas that can be folded down/up for extra work benches or opened to allow longer boards/panels to feed through. Kinda thinking like a food vendor's truck window, maybe on your breezeway side where they aren't visible from the street/neighbors sides.

Flip top benches are one approach to saving space.

I had several mobile tool stands and cabinets when I had to use half of a two-car garage and still use many of them.

Fliptop benches work for bench top tools. Mine are full size mostly floor standing tools. They are all on wheels except the tables, band saw, and drill press. I have been watching all of Stu's shop innovations. Never a square inch to spare. And Glenn's incredibly well-organized shop.

Right now I am trying to sort out what will stay, what needs to go, and what can be set aside in area B (on the other side of the house).

Carol Reed said:

..... Mine are full size mostly floor standing tools.......

Click to expand...

They are your targets. Ask yourself, in the light of the kind of projects you are likely to undertake, whaich of those big static tools do a job that CANNOT be done with a handheld or benchtop tool. Ignore how much time doing it that way will cost. Life is a time/space/money triangle. If you want to change one you have to change at least one of the other two. You are changing your space - I'm guessing that you have the same kind of inelasticity of money that we all do so time is your flexible element.

Height is cheap/free. The less frequently you touch something the higher off the ground it should be. I have extractors fitted to each of my sanders at each workstation. I empty the bags about once a month. They all live 8ft+ off the ground with more frequent use stuff living between them and the floor.

"5 4 drawer file cabinets" - thats a lot of space. If you really need them they belong somewhere else. If thet means a walk when you do need something from them the exercise is healthy and the time is your cost of space.

"assorted shop vacs" - need all of them? Maybe you end up swapping hoses more often but .........

"welding cart, metal cutting band saw" - still appropriate to your likely projects?

"mortiser" - Could you replace this with a handheld domino machine and still get most of the results you want? I know thats money but it may be a useful alternative?


Lots of decisions. I've been in my shop 10 years and I reckon in another ten I'll be nearly halfway to getting most of it something like the way I want it. It is always a work in progress as I am sure is yours. Fun work though.

Good points, Ian. Thanks. The mortiser is on the sale block already. The file cabinets will be replaced with other more fitting storage. Have 3 shop vacs. 2 of them rather small and can certainly live off the ground. Use the metal cutting bandsaw a lot. Not so much for the welder, so another item for the sales block.

Thanks for making me think these things through.

Looks you have both a SCMS and a radial arm saw? Do you need both? If the vacuum pump is staying it could become wall mounted to free up floor space. I can't figure out which specific street you are on, but the park looks like things are pretty close. If there was an opportunity to locate some things behind the house, not visible from the street and screened from neighbors perhaps things like the file cabinets could live outside with a coat of paint and neatly done cover to keep the rain off? Maybe even a barbecue cover? I love the storage my 4 drawer cabinets provide. They live on wheeled plywood platforms and are easily moved. How big/loud is the compressor? Is it needed for the CNC? Can you put it in a sound insulated enclosure outside and run lines to the shop and area 2?

The radial arm is on the "B" list. Good idea with the vacuum pump. Nix on outdoor storage. Park rules. I will make custom drawers in odd places to store what is now in the cabinets. The air compressor will live under the right wing of the table saw, where it has been for years. Don't envision one for the CNC at this point. Time will tell. Also we get more condensation from temperature swings than from rain. Still rusts. DAMHIKT!

If you are looking at a map of the park, I am behind the clubhouse slightly to the right. Yup, neighbors are close.

Room under the CNC machine? I made a drawer cabinet and shelves under mine.

Carol,

My shop is 14 X 26' and I'm suffering for lack of space. I had to downsize from a 3 car sized building into this and it was very hard to do. As a result, my shop is truly a one person shop, since there is almost no aisle or assembly space to move around in. Do you have an outside area to roll your tools outside and do the bigger work out there? I break down my sheet stock outside on a "cutting table" and then cut the pieces to their final size on my Unisaw inside my shop. I also do all planing outside, My DeWalt 735 is attached to a miter saw/planer stand, so it can be rolled outside like a hand truck and then lifted into working position. Folded and inside the shop is stands on end in the corner, requiring less than 3 sq ft of floor space. I have DeWalt's accessory hose and fabric barrel cover to contain the chips and a plastic 55 gallon barrel that hides behind my shop until I need it for planer chip dust collection.

If there is any possible way to put your tools and cabinets on wheels and use them outside, you might be able to make this work very well for you. Do the real noisy work inside and take the space requiring tools outside to work with them. I have no empty wall space inside my shop, because I've hung as much as possible from them. My jigs and fixtures hang from hooks spaced about 8" apart on my shop ceiling. Any of them too large to hang over my walkways are located above my large tools and benches. Spaces between benches have my 18" square piece of granite counter top for use when making very precise height measurements or when doing "scary sharp" sharpening. I also have several 18" X 36" carpet samples to place on my benches when I don't want projects to get scratched. With some creativity, you will find and fill any space in that little shop.

Oh, my dust collector is actually a re-purposed whole house central vacuum that came from the neighbor's extensive house remodeling, with a Dust Deputy next to it on a 20 gallon steel drum. I've been using this vacuum system for several years and the Dust Deputy works so whell that I've never found anything in the container of the vacuum, except for a light coating of dust about equal to the amount of dust you would find on a table that you haven't dusted for several weeks, and this is after the Dust Deputy has separated over 10 gallons of saw dust. The pipes for it are in the shop walls and I have inlet ports in the shop walls, one outside near the passage door so I can vacuum my cars and trucks, and one in the attic, just in case I might need it. The vacuum and Dust Deputy are in my shop attic and it vents outside, so nothing collected ever gets back inside my shop. I have large hooks in the shop ceiling and re-rout the hose to whichever small tool that I'm using. The Unisaw collects it's sawdust in the base cabinet, my jointer drops it's chips into a waste can. The band saw does the same and the planer gets used outside. All the rest of the tools produce smaller waste that can be collected well with the central vacuum. It's not an ideal dust collector, but it works very well for a tiny shop and it doesn't require any shop floor space..

I've had to become quite creative in my use of shop space, and I'm certain that you will find a way in your tiny space too. We "Makers" have to keep going, no matter what it takes and I'm certain that you will find a way too.

Charley