Moving In

Looking at the floor plan on the sales documents and seeing the finished space in person are two completely different things. After living in the house for a few weeks, with my tools still in storage, I was able to get a better feel for the space and, more importantly, the natural light. With two very large windows on the Southeast wall, the shop was bathed in natural light all day long and I made the most of it. In fact, I never actually upgraded the lighting – not because I didn’t need to but because I was able to get by on natural light alone.

Because of the superior light, the first decision I made was to relocate the bench to a position in front of the other window because the light was much better. The second decision was to keep the table saw where I had originally planned. I chose to place it against the Northwest wall so that incoming lumber and sheet goods could be stored adjacent to the infeed area of the saw. This eliminated unnecessary movement of the raw materials. Without power, however, things remained in a state of disarray and the initial shop layout was little more than a jumbled mess. Living with chaos for a few months helped me decided how to approach wiring the shop.

As I started to assemble the extensions and additions to my machinery, the woodshop started to become more organized. This diagram shows the origins of the completed layout but one major flaw existed: lack of storage. The plan was to wire, insulate, and drywall the shop so it could be heated. Having naked framing simplified this but severely limited storage. Lumber was placed on flimsy metal shelving brackets on the Southwest wall because it was already insulated and sheet-rocked, but the boxes I was still living out of were piled underneath. Selecting and using lumber was a miserable task and the location of the lumber racks proved inefficient.