Rethinking Shop Layout

[Cameron Wood]

Try to clear the walls in the height where workpieces needs space when they are machined. So, high storage or low storage, keep the middle height clean where the wood travel. If you have an assembly table, place the router in that and skip the seperate router table. Get rid of all non needed things. Do you really need 2 bandsaws and 2 miter saws?

My shop is about the same size as yours (15×13 feet equals around 20 square meters) and in my opinion one of the better layouted shops in this size. I put quite some effort and many iterations into this final layout. The "keep the wood travel paths clean"-idea i mentioned above is shown at around 3 minutes. https://youtu.be/9zeXpj8I2Ic

Well laid out, and well explained. Congratulations!

[Michael Jasper]

Try to clear the walls in the height where workpieces needs space when they are machined. So, high storage or low storage, keep the middle height clean where the wood travel. If you have an assembly table, place the router in that and skip the seperate router table. Get rid of all non needed things. Do you really need 2 bandsaws and 2 miter saws?

My shop is about the same size as yours (15×13 feet equals around 20 square meters) and in my opinion one of the better layouted shops in this size. I put quite some effort and many iterations into this final layout. The "keep the wood travel paths clean"-idea i mentioned above is shown at around 3 minutes. https://youtu.be/9zeXpj8I2Ic

Very nice layout indeed! Thanks for the ideas. Thinking about it in terms of workpiece travel is helpful.

Unfortunately, I'm going to need to make changes somewhat incrementally. Clearly I need to get rid of some stuff and I need to change my storage so that more things are stored either up high (as you pointed out) or under tools. Too much storage currently displacing potential work space.
Putting the router in the assembly table is very interesting.

My wood shop is also my electrical shop, plumbing shop, landscaping and irrigation shop, and general home maintenance shop. Basically any kind of DIY tools and supplies are here, as I don't have a garage or other basement storage other than this area. But the theme of "get rid of stuff" still applies, painful as it is. I've started making room elsewhere for the woodworking books that are currently in my shop, which is forcing me to admit I probably won't re-read the existential philosophy books I've had on my shelf since college.

[Michael Jasper]

Moving to a new shop, I now have no pegboard, using the walls for shelving. Everything that went on my pegboard is now a tool cabinet (Harbor Freight) with shallow sliding drawers.

When you say tool cabinet - do you mean a floor standing tool chest? I agree that I need to reduce pegboard storage - but I also need to reduce storage that takes up floor space. I'm going to try to add drawers under tools.

[Michael Jasper]

My shop is about the same size as yours (15×13 feet equals around 20 square meters) and in my opinion one of the better layouted shops in this size. I put quite some effort and many iterations into this final layout.

Ola - you mentioned here and in your video that this is your 4th or 5th iteration. I'd be interested in what approaches you tried and abandoned and why they didn't work. I suspect I might learn something from things that seemed like good ideas but turned out not to be.

I'm also curious about the way you located your jointer away from the wall. I see that you did that to allow clear space to the sides for work pieces. Are you not using the lower space behind it?

[Michael Jasper]

Related to re-doing my storage - do you all keep finishing products (flammables) in a fire resistant cabinet? I currently have all of those products in a metal vertical cabinet ( standard single-wall metal ) based on the hope that if there were a fire it would delay the fire reaching those products. However, it's not the most efficient use of space. I wondered if most people do this or not. Moving those products to a wall cabinet or shelves would free up floor space for something like my drill press. When I've seen photos and videos of shops, I don't often see flame resistant storage - maybe it's overkill.

I've got multiple smoke and heat detectors and fire extinguishers to be sure and the smoke detectors are connected to a monitoring service.

[Ola Carmonius]

Ola - you mentioned here and in your video that this is your 4th or 5th iteration. I'd be interested in what approaches you tried and abandoned and why they didn't work. I suspect I might learn something from things that seemed like good ideas but turned out not to be.

I'm also curious about the way you located your jointer away from the wall. I see that you did that to allow clear space to the sides for work pieces. Are you not using the lower space behind it?

Don't remember all iterations in detail but I give some highlights what changed during the years.

Used to have a "miter saw wall", pretty much the only tool that could be on that wall since it needed space both sides. Don't use the miter saw anymore, do all my cross cutting on the table saw nowadays. If I really need the miter saw I take it down from the shelf where it's stored and use it on the assembly table.

As mentioned before, threw out a very nice router table and now have a huge router table since nowadays one of my routers is permanently mounted in the assembly table.

Gave up on the "everything on castors" concept and now have a permanent layout which makes it much more nice to be in the shop. Spend zero minutes nowadays thinking about if I can handle a project and how to rearrange everything for that project. Since I sat the max length of 2.20m it made life much easier.

I put the table saw against the wall instead of center of room as often is suggested and where I had it for a while. It is to a small extent limited where it's located now (cant cross cut a long piece of wood in two long parts but there is workarounds for that) but it's very much worth it to instead have the assembly table in the center.

Less workbenches and the ones I have now are clear of the wood travel path. Used to have all walls coverered with benches and that shrinks the room a lot. This is the most important point I think.

Given up the idea to have the perfect machine for everything. Sure I could need a disc sander once in a while or some other machine, but those occasions are quite rare and I don't want to trade my layout for more machines.

My jointer planer is that far out from the wall for a few reasons, one is to clear the benches in the corners, another is that the fence sticks out quite far on the backside and third reason is the dust hose needs room to be flipped over when converting from jointer to planer. I have some guide rails and other things stored low on the wall behind the planer.

[Cameron Wood]

I also don't favor the 'everything on castors' approach, and think those elaborate chopsaw set ups take up way too much space.

I decided that I didn't care for pegboard at about age ten with the hooks always falling off when you remove a tool, and takes up too much wall space.

Additionally, I think folks tend to restrict themselves to right angles when sometimes angling machines gives more capacity and better material flow.

I don't have a cabinet for finishing materials, but they are mostly in an adjoining room. Don't worry much about storing the containers, but am very careful when applying and dealing with rags, etc. Have seen spontaneous combustion at work.

[Michael Jasper]

Don't remember all iterations in detail but I give some highlights what changed during the years.

Used to have a "miter saw wall", pretty much the only tool that could be on that wall since it needed space both sides. Don't use the miter saw anymore, do all my cross cutting on the table saw nowadays. If I really need the miter saw I take it down from the shelf where it's stored and use it on the assembly table.

As mentioned before, threw out a very nice router table and now have a huge router table since nowadays one of my routers is permanently mounted in the assembly table.

Gave up on the "everything on castors" concept and now have a permanent layout which makes it much more nice to be in the shop. Spend zero minutes nowadays thinking about if I can handle a project and how to rearrange everything for that project. Since I sat the max length of 2.20m it made life much easier.

I put the table saw against the wall instead of center of room as often is suggested and where I had it for a while. It is to a small extent limited where it's located now (cant cross cut a long piece of wood in two long parts but there is workarounds for that) but it's very much worth it to instead have the assembly table in the center.

Less workbenches and the ones I have now are clear of the wood travel path. Used to have all walls coverered with benches and that shrinks the room a lot. This is the most important point I think.

Given up the idea to have the perfect machine for everything. Sure I could need a disc sander once in a while or some other machine, but those occasions are quite rare and I don't want to trade my layout for more machines.

My jointer planer is that far out from the wall for a few reasons, one is to clear the benches in the corners, another is that the fence sticks out quite far on the backside and third reason is the dust hose needs room to be flipped over when converting from jointer to planer. I have some guide rails and other things stored low on the wall behind the planer.

This is very helpful - not just the specific ideas (some of which won't work for me) - but more importantly, how you approached it. Thanks for taking the time to explain how you went about the changes.

[Jim Becker]

I do not use a fire rated cabinet for my finishes...just metal cabinets like you mention. But I also don't use very much finishing material that is flammable. Some BLO, and tung oil, but other than that...it's all waterborne. Actual fire rated finish cabinets are darn expensive, but a good idea if you use and store a lot of actual flammables.

[Michael Jasper]

Thanks Jim. Good point - most of the products I purchase now are water-based. I do still have some older varnish and aerosol lacquer, but as those are used up or age out, I'm replacing with less dangerous (and toxic) products.

[andy bessette]

Make a workbench out of the freezer, with top overhanging all around and more on one end for the router table.

Clear all benchtops and store the benchtop tools under benchtops to keep things uncluttered at benchtop level.

[Alan Lightstone]

Hard to make small spaces work, but people do.

I'd certainly lose the books to indoor storage. That's what I do.

I also hang my Woodpeckers tools (as much as I can) on doors. Free space that you never thought of. Can be inside or outside of doors, especially closet doors.

That chest freezer is a space killer. I think that suggestion of making the top a workbench is a good one, but it will need to be easily liftable. Mechanical assist there might be nice.

Also, and probably my best suggestion. Time to get rid of the redundant tools. Multiple drills, multiple bandsaws, multiple circular saws etc... While it's less convenient than changing blades, space is more important here. Save the best ones. Donate the rest.

An organized vertical plane till would also likely save you some space - especially space at easy reaching level.

And I hate pegboard. I find wall mounted cabinets with drawers are far more space efficient. And shelves with plastic containers (harder to find these days than it used to be) to keep things organized.

And like all of us, you could probably lose half of your cutoffs and never miss them.

[glenn bradley]

One thing that helped me when I had a smaller shop was to prioritize my tools. I kept items used every day near to hand, items used weekly in cabinets or on shelves farther away and items used specifically for one task or another still farther out of reach. Some things even ended up out of the shop and in a shed in the back. I didn't keep all of my hammers nearby, just the ones I used most. I didn't keep full sets of pliers and wrenches nearby, just the ones needed for tasks in that area. Oddly enough I actually found having duplicates of some tools colocated with the areas where they were used to be more space efficient than one tool that I had to keep crossing the shop to get. I also pretty much banished all non-woodworking items from the shop or sent them up into the rafters. Items that did not have a "place" were stored outside the shop. Items that live permanently on flat surfaces make those surfaces unavailable for work. A place for everything and everything in its place . . . or out it goes. Hard decisions must be made when space is at a premium . . . and it seems it always is ;-)

[Steve Rozmiarek]

One thing that I noticed in the small (and not so small) shops I've had, is how quickly the available space becomes overtaken by extra stuff. Extra tools, extra lumber, extra hardware, pretty soon the space is a warehouse, not a shop. I've had a shop similar in size to yours, it takes diligence to sort the stuff you don't need for a task. I work out of 13,000 sqft now, it's a business so there is an incentive for profit making stuff only in there but I am still surprised at the constant effort required to keep me from being a hoarder. Have a lead on a nice Monarch tool room lathe this morning, it'd be a really nice upgrade from my Atlas, but why on earth do I even need a metal lathe in the shop!?

Brings me to my point, a shop is an extension of your mind. Sometimes you want to let it run and see what interesting things happen, sometimes it needs some boundaries. Your shop looks interesting as is for curiosity and learning, not so much for cabinet making. Ok, enough pontificating.

[Ola Carmonius]

One thing that I noticed in the small (and not so small) shops I've had, is how quickly the available space becomes overtaken by extra stuff. Extra tools, extra lumber, extra hardware, pretty soon the space is a warehouse, not a shop. I've had a shop similar in size to yours, it takes diligence to sort the stuff you don't need for a task. I work out of 13,000 sqft now, it's a business so there is an incentive for profit making stuff only in there but I am still surprised at the constant effort required to keep me from being a hoarder. Have a lead on a nice Monarch tool room lathe this morning, it'd be a really nice upgrade from my Atlas, but why on earth do I even need a metal lathe in the shop!?

Brings me to my point, a shop is an extension of your mind. Sometimes you want to let it run and see what interesting things happen, sometimes it needs some boundaries. Your shop looks interesting as is for curiosity and learning, not so much for cabinet making. Ok, enough pontificating.

Good points...except for the metal lathe thing. I have one (actually two but I will sell the old one when the new is in working condition) and I use it frequently even if I'm a pure woodworker. I make drawer pulls, sometimes in a mix of wood and metal, hardware for jigs and fixtures, odd sized dowels, mft hole stoppers, machine parts and the list goes on.

Edit. Oh, maybe I misunderstood, the Atlas you have is a metal lathe? Well then you know it can be useful and can ignore what I wrote.