Let me guess… your current shop is less than ideal, right? Too dark? Too cold in the winter, too hot in the summer? Lots of spiders? Wasps? Yeah, me too. In this week’s episode, I’m giving you a rundown of the 6 changes I would make to turn my current shop into my dream shop. What would you change about yours?
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I think the basement looks great! I wish I could be involved in the building of a home for myself but I keep getting older homes as they appeal to my wife and I but you do not get much in terms of a basement; try dirt floors! You can’t seal them!
We also have a home in Coconut Grove Miami Florida built on a slab with a crawl space – again dirt again built in the 1930′s.
You must have had the ready mix trucks around the block for that pour.
My ex-brother-in-law had a town house in Philadelphia and the former owners had a fix for a dark basement that may be applicable. In one part of the basement the outside was graded slopping downward to about one or one and a half feet below grade and a row of windows were cut into the concrete foundation – maybe two or three basement sized vent windows. The result was a lot of light with a nice gravel graded area that reflected additional light with additional plantings for visual effect. If you did something like that on a south western wall that my help you lighting problems without compromising the structural integrity of the foundation and it would help get rid of any potential radon build-up.
Hey man, your shop must be pretty squared away! It sounds like the things you need to upgrade your shop are pretty minor. So consider yourself blessed!
As for me, despite being in a tiny shop (about 5′x7′), I would say that my dream shop doesn’t necessarily involve a ton of space! I suppose my dream shop would have room enough for a thickness planer. And then it would also have a thickness planer. :^) I also wouldn’t mind having some A/C, as my current shop is whatever temperature it is outside in the shade. That means I’m year-round at about 80 degrees or so during the day.
Other than that, I think I’m happy with my setup. I’m a neanderthal so I don’t need a ton of floor space. And part of my hobby is trying to problem-solve in the absence of power tools and space, so a small shop is perfect!
Doing hobby wood working for 30 years I thought it was time to upgrade.
My New Shop is an 4000sf industrial out building I put up myself, 14ft walls 19ft to the peak(insulated) with 12×18 & 12×12 rollup doors, eight 4×4 windows btm @ 7ft high(for wall space).
Concrete floors (11 trucks “oh boy” the footings were huge) epoxy and electrical in the floor for the machines off of the walls.
Electrical panels 150amp 240v -120v 1ph & 50amp 240V 3ph (from converter).
I can go on and on
But looking back I wish I had not gone to the extreme and only had it Half the size,
One has to balance out the needs and wants including ones budget and this one went over.
I would have been happier with two new machines in a smaller shop,
So my advice, the dream shop is not what it looks like from the outside or how big its is, It’s what’s inside that counts!
Hey Dave, I just stumbled onto your site. Love it! Great ideas on the ‘dream shop’ podcast. I’m in the process of laying out and building my new shop right now. I’d love for it to be the dream shop we all hope for…we’ll see.
Appreciate you putting out some good info for other woodworkers to learn from. Your links are good references too (I found the Woodworker’s Resource through them).
Keep it up!
Neil
The Silent Woods Project