Shop Remodeling Time

It has been a cathartic few weeks.  First a big thank you for the huge response from my readers on my recent tool sale.  I think it took a combined 10 minutes spread over 3 days and 3 posts to sell all of my power tools except my band saw, planer, and drill press.  This past weekend, I packed up and moved the last of them out of my shop.  It may not be very obvious to the outside observer but I have quite a bit more room right now.

Here is the shop from the garage door.  The big change here is no more jointer or table saw taking up space.  I have much more room behind me as I stand at my bench and I have moved my saw bench into that spot making the saw “corner” more accessible.  The joinery bench is where the table saw used to be but won’t be there long as I plan to move it under the rear window.  Without the table saw I was able to move my Roubo workbench further away from the window freeing up a lot of space back there.

Here is the reverse view.  Obviously I still have a wood problem.  The wood rack is staying but the cabinets beneath it need to be redone.  Currently they hold scraps and they aren’t very accessible so I plan on building a wine rack style holder up against the wall for the scraps to slide in to.

Most of the white melamine cabinetry is empty at this point and this is my next step to minimizing my shop.  These cabinets were the first things I built when I moved into my shop back in 2004.  My goal was to keep just about everything inside a cabinet to keep the dust at bay.  Still not a bad idea as long as you know where everything is, but the fixed cabinet idea was not the smartest.  With a small shop, you need to be mobile and these cabinets are decidedly not.  I like having a long run of counter top but honestly it does just collect stuff.  My sharpening station seen just in front of the garage door is a great example of how a mobile cabinet will work great.  This holds all my sharpening stuff and also doubles as an assembly table.  It can be moved around wherever I need it including out of the way should I need more space.  My current 24′ long run of fixed cabinets that is almost empty is now just robbing me of a lot of real estate.  Much of these cabinets will be demolished while the rest will be mobilized so I have flexibility.

This wall behind me as I stand at my bench will see the biggest change.  Everything is coming off the wall and I will be putting up a new wall over top of the cinder block.  Probably a nice wood panel beadboard since this is often the backdrop of all my videos.  My hand tool cabinet will be hung on this wall and my bench hook rail will go right underneath it.  This way all my tools are within arms reach of the bench.  Of course to move this stuff lining the wall, space has to be opened elsewhere.  This is why I’m ditching most of the melamine cabinetry to make room.

Essentially the whole shop will be flipped around and most importantly, a new wood floor will be added.  It will be a lot of work but it is something I have been thinking about for a long while.  My shop was originally set up for power tool usage and now it just doesn’t work.  Clearing out the unused tools has helped a lot and I’m well on my way to a optimally functioning hand tool shop.  I don’t imagine I will get to any construction work until Christmas time but I plan to keep y’all updated as I make progress.