Small workshops, 300-400 sq ft???

[David Publicover]

I’m in a 12’ x 22’ garage. 400 sq. ft. would be quite a step up in size! I have a cabinet saw, bandsaw, a jointer/planer cyclone and small router table. All on wheels but mostly positioned where I use them. I’ve been rearranging things a lot this summer and found that a couple changes and better reorganization gave me a lot more useable space.
I do have a separate shed that handles some rarely used tools but found that simply clearing out the accumulated junk that I never use gave me one of the biggest gains in useable space.
Good luck with your projects!

[Jim Becker]

Thank you. This was my father in laws space. I've used it on and off for the last 15 years but the last couple it has became a catch all. I want to reclaim it. He did alot of carpentry in it, repaired his tractor parts inside it, practiced leather work and taxidermy and butchered many deer there. I didn't know him near long enough to learn what he could teach me.
My goal is to clean it up and this winter build my wife a blanket chest, and keep up on the small engine repairs we have lined up for our equipment.

Sounds like a good plan!

One thing...since you'll be mixing woodworking and the small engine stuff in the same small space, be sure you have an appropriate cover for your bench to use when doing the engine stuff so you can separate greasy activities from your woodworking. With a small space, work surfaces have to do "multiple duty" and you don't want oil/grease to be anywhere in contact with the wood activities.

[Andy D Jones]

If you haven't noticed yet, mobile bases on virtually everything are highly recommended (maybe not on a lathe, if you have a space to permanently locate it.)

My machines and benches are parked, as in a bus barn, in the right half of my 2 car garage, to be "backed out" as needed, into the left half temporarily vacated by the SUV. Since the combination of machines in use, and how they are used at the time, dictates various layouts, my DC solution needs to be mobile as well, and connected with a 10' flex. The Oneida Mini Gorilla is excellent for this application, and consumes very little floor space.

Luckily, I have space to permanently locate my lathe, on a raised, 4' wide strip between the SUV and the attached house (opposite the "bus barn" for the other machines & benches.)

By decree, the SUV shall be parked in the left half of the garage every night, excepting uncommon indulgences, granted in advance.

-- Andy - Arlington TX

[Zachary Hoyt]

My current shop space is 14x20 and contains an 18" bandsaw, a drill press and a Shopsmith standing on the floor, a 19-38 drum sander on a cabinet on wheels, and several benchtop tools on or under benches. My router table is 18" square and is hinged to the end of a rolling work table so it can be folded down vertically out of the way when not in use. The 10" bandsaw, 12" miter saw and 4x36 belt sander are always on top of cabinets, and the 1" belt sander, OSS and scroll saw are on the lower shelf of the rolling table when not in use. The table saw, planer and jointer live elsewhere, in an unheated building. I mainly build musical instruments and have lots of room for that, when I have a large furniture or cabinet project it gets crowded in there.

[Mike Henderson]

My first shop was 10 feet by 11 feet - 110 square feet. I managed to build a lot of things in that shop. I did use some attached garage space when I was working on something big.

I had a table saw, lathe, bandsaw, drill press, and miter saw in that space. My router table was built into the wing of my table saw. And I had a vise at the far end of one wing of the table saw.

Mike

[Erich Weidner]

If you haven't noticed yet, mobile bases on virtually everything are highly recommended (maybe not on a lathe, if you have a space to permanently locate it.)

My machines and benches are parked, as in a bus barn, in the right half of my 2 car garage, to be "backed out" as needed, into the left half temporarily vacated by the SUV. Since the combination of machines in use, and how they are used at the time, dictates various layouts, my DC solution needs to be mobile as well, and connected with a 10' flex. The Oneida Mini Gorilla is excellent for this application, and consumes very little floor space...
...By decree, the SUV shall be parked in the left half of the garage every night, excepting uncommon indulgences, granted in advance.

LOL Almost same for me. I have a two car garage, half is the "shop" the other half is for the mid-life crisis mobile, but I only put it in when I'm not working on anything, or when the 3-4/year hail storms roll through Central Texas.
...and that is why all the big stuff is on wheels/mobile bases so in 15 min or less game of shop tetris, everything can be consolidated to one half of the garage.. I have the Oneida Smart collector thingie (I think it is just the older version of what you have), on wheels. I couldn't have a dust collector if I had to have it stationary.

[Jim Becker]

shop tetris

Oh, my...that's the perfect phrase!!!

[Andy D Jones]

Oh, my...that's the perfect phrase!!!

Yes! It is incredibly apt!

I found that the bus-barn approach (where long machines like tablesaw, J/P, benches, etc., roll lengthwise in/out of their parking spots from/to the SUV side of the garage, minimizes (but does not eliminate) needed machines being land-locked behind other machines/benches/etc.

And of course, lesser-used machines are located behind more frequently used ones, and smaller/shorter machines may be behind a bench or a DC that will almost certainly also be needed and rolled out anyway.

So think of it as a twist on the game of Tetris, where you need to frequently excavate part of the stack too, hopefully with minimal time and effort.

-- Andy - Arlington TX

[Evan Van Dyke]

My shop is a single car garage... that has to fold away and accommodate my wife’s car come winter. And accommodate bikes and etc for two girls. I don’t have any floor standing machinery, and my only bench top machines are a router table, miter saw and a 10” bandsaw. A bench drill press is on my wish list, but that’s about it for stationary machinery. I am even careful on shelf space for hand machines... but what I have found is that a good track saw is worth its weight in gold (no table saw you notice). Bought the miter saw before the track saw; if I had to pick one it would be the track as it can do everything the miter saw can do, just slower. Miter saw is also easier with small pieces.

i have four workbenches that fold flat against the wall, one of them is the router table. Small spaces just take planing and care with the work. My biggest issue with the space is that it is unconditioned, not that it’s too small. I can work around the size if I need to. My second biggest issue is that workbenches up against the wall don’t let work hang off the back side, but that’s what sawhorses are for when needed. Beyond that, it is mostly being very deliberate with what tools I let come into the shop. If it doesn’t have a purpose and need, don’t add it.

Most recent purchase was a hand router so I can have one in the bench and one in the hand. Hand saws and good squares before that. I am considering some hand planes, if I can find space for them.

[Thomas Crawford]

I'm in ~500 sq feet of "dedicated" shop space. Dedicated in quotes because it is now also my home office and a part time ballet studio. I get by with a 15" planer, SCMS, and 16" bandsaw - the rest hand tools. The planer will go at some point this year, replaced with a 16" J/P combo. I have plenty of room (hopefully next year) to add a 24" bandsaw and large lathe. Everthing on rollers, but just a simple push/pull a few feet. Dust collection on the wall. I can easily set up a full size ping pong table in the middle if I am not in the middle of a project. I could downsize to 350-400 sq ft if I had to. The key for me was deciding to forgoe the table saw completely. Although I may end up with a european slider at some point

[Richard Hutchings]

I'm very tempted to turn my TS into an assembly table.

[Steve Wurster]

My basement shop is ~16'x22', so maybe 350 square feet. Two of the walls are poured cement, while the other is drywall with metal studs. The "4th" wall is HVAC equipment. There's only about 7 feet of vertical space before you hit a rafter or HVAC ducting, and there are a few fire suppression sprinkler heads sticking down lower than that.

I do have a decent amount of stuff in the shop though, including a sliding table saw with a 79" wagon. That and my drill press are the only tools that don't move and are always plugged in. Everything else (bandsaw, drum sander, jointer/planer combo, router table) are mobile and kept against a wall when not in use. Each one has to be individually pulled out, plugged in, and hooked up to dust collection before I can use it. Same with my oscillating sander and (rarely used) miter saw that sit on a flip-top cart. I also have a mobile assembly table that holds clamps and stuff underneath; it's frequently in the way and has to be moved / worked around regularly. I keep it because it's another horizontal surface that I can regularly use.

One big thing is to make good use of the wall space. My horizontal lumber rack takes up part of one wall (it technically hangs from the rafters), with cat litter boxes under that which means that floor space is completely unusable to me. My dust collector hangs on the wall next to that, with a cyclone attachment underneath; all that is placed to the right of my table saw, with some piping setup behind the saw that connects to a hose for use by the mobile tools. A shop vac sits down by the DC as well and also doesn't move. My workbench is next to that, facing a wall loaded with french cleats that holds a lot of hand tools. A lot of accessories for my table saw and routers are hanging on the opposite wall, above all the mobile tools. The shortest wall has old kitchen base cabinets, with that counter being yet another horizontal space. Clamps also hang on that wall, as does another old kitchen cabinet, but the space above those base cabinets is mostly unused. I've been trying to figure out what to put there.

I also have some additional space on the other side of HVAC equipment. That area contains shelving units with mostly non-shop items (house paint, light bulbs, etc.), a decent sized toolbox with mostly standard homeowner tools (some woodworking stuff), and a few other things. I do have some woodworking jigs stored over in that area as well though.

So it's tight most of the time, especially if I'm working on something "large", but it's manageable. I would love for more space, but that probably won't be in the plans anytime soon.

[Roger Feeley]

- think in three dimensions. Can you make the bed of one tool serve as an out feed table for another? Can you hoist things to the ceiling?
- try to make surfaces multitask. Could you mount the cutoff saw so that you can rotate it down and raise the planer?
- in my most recent shop, I tried to address my tendency to trash up horizontal surfaces by all but eliminating them.

[Andy D Jones]

I'm very tempted to turn my TS into an assembly table.

Hey, I have a Unisaw with 52" Unifence, and I used to use it for an assembly table quite often. I've even thought about hanging an extra woodworking vise or two on the TS! That was when I parked two vehicles in the garage most every night (except during a few big projects when I parked my truck outside.)

My wife's vehicle (first, minivans, then SUVs) almost never gets parked outside overnight.

-- Andy - Arlington TX

[Rob Luter]

I have a small basement shop in sort of an “L” shape. The main area is 13 x 20 with a post in the middle. There is also a 6 x 10 area adjacent that I use for storage. Most everything is on wheels. I have a table saw, 14” band saw, drill press, lunchbox planer on a stand, belt/disc sander, island bench with large back bar, sharpening station, wall mounted lumber storage, and a dust collector. It’s an exercise in getting ten pounds in a five pound box. Tool storage is primarily on the walls. Project planning is important. It forces you to stay organized and keep things tidy.