The SandField Furniture workshop.

[Igor Vasilenko]

Hi guys, I run my own small custom furniture business, SandField Furniture, from my workshop here in Canada. I started taking woodworking seriously about 2 years ago, and opened my own woodworking company in June 2012 with the help of a small grant from the local township. Since then, I have built quite a few bookcases, benches, and some garden furniture, as well as a vanity and a harvest table on commission.

Many woodworkers ask how large does a shop need to be to build custom furniture from. Well, my answer is about 260 sq. ft! Add to that the fact that my financial resources are very limited, even though I sell my work. But I will have to admit that I only run my shop as a business 3 months a year, during the summer holidays, and during the 2 weeks of Christmas holiday as well. The remaining time is given to schoolwork, which I cannot over-run!

I will be posting the history of my shop step by step, starting from around March 2012 to today. Having extensively rebuilt my shop and still working on it, I think that this may be interesting to see for someone planning a shop reconstruction anytime soon:

The first four photos below show what my shop was like around March-April 2012:
May 7 063.jpg
Notice the ceiling below:
March 21, 2012 014.jpg

Igor's workshop 001.jpg

May 7 061.jpg

Here the next several photos show my shop around June 2012, at the start of my company. As you can see, I have by then purchased several new tools such as a Bosch table saw and some other new power tools, but the shop itself was still a mess:

Igor's furniture 002.jpg

Igor's furniture 005.jpg

Igor's furniture 007.jpg

In the next posts, I will show you the beginning of the shop wall reconstruction in the several phases I have done it.

[Igor Vasilenko]

In the next photos I'll show the start of my shop rebuild. The "walls" that my shop featured when I moved into the place were 1/8" cardboard with a deco façade. I couldn't mount anything directly; my only choice was to mount anything directly to the studs, greatly shortening my shop's capacity and usefulness.

The condition of the existing wall was terrible:
Igor's furniture 018.jpg

Igor's furniture 009.jpg

Igor's furniture 017.jpg

So, I decided a full wall and ceiling reconstruction was due!

[Igor Vasilenko]

Once I took everything down off the wall, I started the rebuild:

Here I cleared the East wall of all the existing shelving:
Igor's furniture 015 (1024x768).jpg

Igor's furniture 016 (1024x768).jpg

I then began rebuilding the wall. I used 3/4" plywood to make the new wall "hang-anywhere", which means that I can hang a cabinet or accessory anywhere on the wall without worrying that it will not support it well. You will notice in one of the photos that I have already built the ceiling by the time I had begun work on the walls. I'll post photos of the ceiling in a future post. The photos below show the start of the new wall construction:

Igor's furniture 007.jpg

Igor's furniture 001.jpg

Igor's furniture 002.jpg

[Aaron Berk]

Cool thread, I love to see ppl moving forward.

Keep up the posting!