Humble Beginnings
My first workshop on Oak Road. “Where it all began”. This space was approximately 100 sq ft. It was cramped, but I was excited to have a dedicated space. This was a selling point for me when we bought the house in 2006. One of the biggest downsides, is it directly abutted the laundry area, so any amount of sawdust I generated would coat all of our laundry. This did not go over well, especially if the laundry was (previously) clean! I outgrew this space pretty quickly and decided it was time for an upgrade.
Garage Takeover
In order to get more space and keep the sawdust off the clean laundry, I moved my workshop into our integral 1 car garage. This space was approximately 300 sq ft. Oh boy was I excited! A dedicated space separated from the main house. I ran a 60 amp sub panel into the room. I added heat from the main house, set up basic (shop vac powered) dust collection, installed compressed air ports in the ceiling, and made a custom low profile air cleaner to hang from the already low ceiling right above the table saw. Having this space really allowed me to branch out and start taking on more complex, and slightly bigger projects.
Current Workshop
In 2017, my wife and I decided to buy a new house. She had her list of “must-haves” and I had mine. But mine was quite a bit shorter. “An epic workshop space”. After lots of searching, we finally found it. My new, current workshop is a 30′ x 34′ steel outbuilding, right in our backyard. It is 1,020 sq ft. It was listed in the realtor’s listing as a 6 car garage. If empty, you could certainly fit that many cars in it. But what a waste that would be 🙂
The shop was nearly empty when we moved in, but had some impressive features. It already had a 100 amp subpanel for power, running water with a large stainless sink, it’s own oil fed hot air furnace and dedicated oil tank. The ceilings are 11ft along the sides, and 16ft in the center. It has a normal door, and two large 10′ x 10′ sliding doors. It also has it’s own driveway which runs down the side of our property which makes backing my truck up to the big doors super easy.
The workshop is my biggest, and favorite ongoing project. It will continue to evolve for as long as I own it. Since these pictures were taken in the spring of 2020 I have added a Nest thermostat, doubled my number of long clamps, added an 8″ long bed jointer, insulated/finished another wall, and have replaced all overhead lighting with LED lights. I am truly fortunate to have such an amazing space.
