feedback requested - planned shop arrangement

[Joe A Faulkner]

If you are building the addition from scratch, you might want to consider sky lights; while you will lose some heat in the winter, the natural light can be a a nice extra. Of course if you do most of your shop work in the evenings you won't get much benefit. Something to consider.

[Mike Cruz]

Wow, where to start...

First of all, the BS should go against a wall. Space to the left of a BS is useless... you can't cut there. Just make sure there is enough room for you to stand comfortably, and that you have enough room for infeed and outfeed of stock. If you don't plan to resaw, that amount of room is relatively small. If you are going to resaw, then remember that your infeeed or outfeed can be in a walking area.

I would put the miter saw station against the back wall. You can always use the space above it along the wall for storage for long cutoffs and strips.

Consider putting your TS, Planer, and Jointer all in the middle and utilize the garage space as infeed or outfeed area for long boards.

Remember that on your plans, when you have the width of your addition as 22', that is not what the final dimension will be. The wall, with all the layers of siding, structure, and interior cover (drywall, or whatever) takes more space than you think, so that dimension can easily be 21' 3". My not sound like much, but believe me, it makes a difference.

You will NEED work bench space. A long one (8 to 10 feet) along a wall is nice to have, but also consider having a free standing one. If you are running out of room, the free standing one can also serve as an outfeed table for your TS. But remember that horizontal space gets cluttered very quickly.

When building perminent/semi perminent things like work benches, make sure they are LOWER than your equipment. For example, a 12' work bench that is lower than your TS is still usefull as outfeed space. If it is HIGHER than your TS outfeed (or infeed) height, then you just made your room 2 feet narrower. Also remember that not all TS's are the same height. I built my benches to be just under the height of my Ridgid TS. Then I got a Uni... it was 2 inches lower.

So, if you can make your benches adjustable (feet with adjustable screws or something) that would make your life easier.

A drill press, like the BS, can also easily go up against the wall.

EVERYTHING should be on GOOD mobile bases so when/if you need to make minor adjustments to their location (or major ones for that matter) it is easy and not a hassle. I am not one for having everything up against the wall and then having to move them to the middle of the room when I neeed to use them, but occasionally, you may/will need to move the BS a foot to the right to accomodate a special cut...and a mobile base is golden in those circumstances.

Even after a lot of thought and multiple arrangements on paper, I STILL changed around my shop a couple of times before it "worked'...and I'm still tweeking.

Good luck, and have fun with it!