1/2 of 2 car garage shop layout

[Salem Ganzhorn]

I have 1/2 of a 2 car garage and about the only rule is SHMBO's car must fit in the garage at night . I also share my space with kids bikes, strollers, water heater, etc etc.

I was struggling with where to setup my tools so I can use them without having to move them or move other stuff to get to them.

This weekend I rearranged the layout in my "shop" and am pretty happy with it.

The height of my planer is a little lower than my jointer bed so I can overlap the outfeed of the planer and the infeed of the jointer without the tools blocking each other. I don't have a need to rip really wide and long stock anymore so having my planer right behind the right table of my TS lets me pack them in closer (I have given up on ripping whole pieces of plywood. I just break them down with a circular saw now).

If I ever get around to running permanent DC (right now I just move the hose around to the 3 major dust/chip producers) there is a great place to drop a 6" pipe right in the middle of my planer, jointer and tablesaw. Also I have small children so I don't like leaving the tools energized. I run a single 220v extension cord to the middle of my 3 big tools and plug them in only when I am using them. And when I leave the garage I turn off the 220v breaker.

For some reason some of my text is not showing up. The tool on the far right is a bandsaw. there is also a scrollsaw on the bench to the left of the tablesaw. And the red arrows indicate the feed direction of stock.

Any critiques? Any other suggestions for fitting big tools in a little space?

Thanks!
Salem

[glenn bradley]

I tend to go straight from my jointer to the planer so I would be tempted to turn the planer around. This is not a big deal, just a convenience.

[Lee Schierer]

Since there are no dimensions I can't tell if you will have enough outfeed area for the planer and the paner will block you if you try to cut any sheet goods on the TS.

[Chris Tsutsui]

Half a 2 car garage isn't enough space for me, thus I have all of the woodworking machines on mobile bases stacked like a valet parking garage.

Whenever i'm going to work on a project, I pull everything out and arrange it in the whole 2-car garage space.

Then when i'm done with the project the tools go back to stacked parking mode and the wifey's car (or mine) can go back to parking in the garage.

[Salem Ganzhorn]

I tend to go straight from my jointer to the planer so I would be tempted to turn the planer around. This is not a big deal, just a convenience.

Glen,
Thanks for the input I think you are right but I can't make this change easily until I get the DC coming from the ceiling. If I make this change now the DC hose will really be in the way.
Salem

[Salem Ganzhorn]

Since there are no dimensions I can't tell if you will have enough outfeed area for the planer and the paner will block you if you try to cut any sheet goods on the TS.

Lee,
The planer will block the outfeed of the table saw if I am ripping > 18" wide. I really don't do this very often and all I have to do is roll the planer a little to make more room. I break down large pieces with a circular saw usually so I don't hit this problem often.

[Salem Ganzhorn]

Half a 2 car garage isn't enough space for me, thus I have all of the woodworking machines on mobile bases stacked like a valet parking garage.

Whenever i'm going to work on a project, I pull everything out and arrange it in the whole 2-car garage space.

Then when i'm done with the project the tools go back to stacked parking mode and the wifey's car (or mine) can go back to parking in the garage.

I used to do something like this. But it is a real pain. I am much happier now not having to move tools around. And it makes setting up DC easier. Which makes cleanup easier. Which means more time for projects.
I do however pull out the car when working. This gives me tons of room in front of the table saw and a large area for big glue-ups.

[Brian Kent]

I have a similar setup, using 1/2 of the 2 car garage, but allowing for extension of boards I am working on to extend to the other side.

My machines are arranged according to compatible table height. The Dust Collector is inside of my "Tool Island". I use air gates so everything is permanently attached but only one tool is on at a time and nothing has more than a 5' hose (most are 3').

The dust collector in the center, in clockwise order I have my jointer, 18/36" sander (I have no planer yet), router table and band saw. The router table is about 1/4" shorter than the bandsaw table so that works for outfeed.

Next to all of this is the table saw. The jointer gets close but is lower than the table saw so it works. I built a collapsing outfeed table for the table saw.

A small workbench holds a drill press, grinder and belt sander, only serviced by the shop vac.

The Tool Island works well. Very size-effective with no movement of tools.

Bran

[Salem Ganzhorn]

I have a similar setup, using 1/2 of the 2 car garage, but allowing for extension of boards I am working on to extend to the other side.

<snip>

The Tool Island works well. Very size-effective with no movement of tools.

Bran

Bran,
Moving the DC in the middle somewhere is interesting and may work for me. I don't have permanent DC right now (I just move he hose around) but would really like to set it up. I really like the idea of 5' of hose maximum, I really don't have room for huge DC. Do you have any pictures?
Thanks!
Salem

[Brian Kent]

Here is my "Tool Island" Layout.

One is a print from the Grizzly shop layout tool.

The other three show the tool positions and the cluster of hoses and gates. One additional hose goes across to the Table saw. That's the one that is almost 5'. The rest are shorter.

Brian

[Bill Blackburn]

Compact Brian - great use of smaller space! I must have missed the "where" in how the saw fits into the picture? Mobile base on that one? Guess I need to re-read and pay more attention

Part that really is slickest of all IMO is the fact you can keep the DC and hoses in tight area and minimize all the spaghetti running everywhere which always takes up a lot of ceiling, floor and wall space for me. If I redid mine to something similar I'd be larger in footprint but actually have room on some walls for items that actually have the right to be in a garage

Sharing always presents us with problems but most can be addressed. A good friend just downsized from dedicated 32' x 20' building to 1/2 of a 2 car garage. He downsized hid 16" jointer to an 8" but kept amost everything else. All mobile. He says it takes a bit sometimes to roll all out and setup but he's now a hobbiest and doesn't earn a living doing WW things and is very pleased overall. Huge difference from living in/off a shop and being in the shop to sometimes make things. Big world of difference.

I'd love 10,000 s/f but need 2% of that if I am honest about it. But I enjoy this as a hobby activity

[Brian Kent]

In the shop drawing the tool island is top center. The table saw is bottom center.

[Bill Blackburn]

Got ya - I catch it in drawing but was thinking it somehow was buried in one of the pics of shop itself.

All told then you actually --- dedicated floor space only - fit this on the one half then huh?! Pretty amazing and great use of what, maybe 200 s/f tops I'd think? The central DC the cat's meow IMO and what makes all happen cleanly.

Nice job

[Bill Dunn jr]

I find that with my 2 car "shop" I still have to move the big pieces (TS, Jointer, Planer) around all the time, and that is with my wife not being allowed to put the car in there. Isn't it funny that no matter how much room you have you always wish you had just another xxx feet one way or the other. Before moving here in 2006 I made due with my basement shop in a space of about 7 x 12.

Bill