Should I add a wall to enclose garage shop?

[Mark Felton]

I am looking for advice (pros and cons) and the experience of others as to whether I should add a wall in my garage to enclose my "workshop". Here is a little background/description:

I have a 3-car garage. Currently, one car and one motorcycle "live" in the garage. I have recently gotten much more serious with woodworking (though I am still a relative beginner). I've kind of devoted the 3rd car bay as my workshop. As it has kind of evolved, I began thinking about walling off that area to create a true workshop and not just an area of the garage. The resulting space would be about 10' x 19' and would have a garage door at the end and I would install a double sized door in the proposed wall.

The plusses:
Dedicated area
Better dust control (at least off other stuff in the garage)
An additional wall for cabinets, shelves, outlets, etc
Ability to heat better in winter and maybe cool better in summer

Concerns:
Is this space (10' x 19') too small?
Will I feel closed in?
Will this too severely limit my flexibility (i.e., currently I can move car and scooter out if I temporarily need the space)?

Current and future tools (all on mobile bases)
Grizzly cabinet saw
17" Drill Press (floor model)
14" Rikon bandsaw
30" x 80" workbench / assembly table
12" compound sliding miter saw on dedicated stand
Router table (future)
Possibly a dual-tool flip stand with planer and spindle sander (future)

Uses:
Small furniture projects
Some cabinetry

All thoughts, advice, and suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Mark

[ray hampton]

telling you what to do is not so simply, do you have the property for a separate building/ workshop ? are your drive-way big enough to park the cars

[Chris Padilla]

For me, that would be TOO small. Since you are getting more serious, odds are excellent you will continue to acquire tools and therefore want more space for said tools.

I'd sell the motorcycle (they're dangerous!! LOL!) and take over 2 bays of the garage!!

If you do want to enclose the space, wait another year or two for your skills and the hobby to mature a bit more and then re-evaluate. I'm almost certain you will outgrow that 10x19 pretty quickly.

[Jonathan Leong]

Honestly the climate control aspects that you mentioned seals the deal for me because that means I can be a weekend warrior every weekend. Not just select weekends when it isn't too muggy or too cold. Dust control can win over the family and ease cleanup tremendously. I chose a tiny 11.5'x13.5'x9' fully enclosed space in my basement with weather sealed exterior grade doors and gave up the table saw for festool mft/3 setup and don't regret it because I can work anytime I want without worrying about dust through the house or climate. I had to learn to play with the severe limitations of not having a table saw, but so far it is going well. I focus on small furniture, cabinet, and going to start jewelry boxes.

Your space is larger so a table saw may work. I recommend framing in large 6' double doors in your wall so that you can open the doors for large panels or cutting long pieces. This in addition to your garage door will give you flexibility for table saw placement.

One thing that I found helpful was to cut paper models of my tools and place them on my floor plan. My wife is also good with "tetris" like activities and once I told her the space requirements of each tool in terms of infeed and outfeed etc. We were able to cram a workbench (2'x4'), assembly table (3'x4'), mft/3, dewalt scms, woodpeckers router table, and a spot for future cv1800 cyclone and filters in a way that the tools don't interfere with each other.

[bobby milam]

I had the same situation. I used about 1 1/2 of the 3 car garage for about a year. I have a cabinet saw, planer, jointer, drum sander, CNC machine, dust collector, drill press, 4X8 work table, and other misc. I started outgrowing it fairly quickly. I found myself tripping over everything, no place to finish the project, still want a band saw and a few more things. I have everything on wheels too but it is a PIA to move everything every time that I want to work. I would bet that you will outgrow it soon. Maybe put a wall dividing the garage in half and get creative on tool placement and it would work for you....just don't buy more tools.

My solution was to sell the bike and park my wife's car outside. She hated the dust on it so that wasn't hard to agree upon. I will eventually put up a carport to protect the vehicles from the weather. I was then able to utilize the entire garage. I now have plenty of room for everything and some room to grow. I also put interior walls up so that I have enclosed storage, a finishing room, an office and now I have a dedicated table for glue ups, another one for sanding, a room for the CNC and lots of wall space to hang cabinets later. I love it now and haven't regretted it.

Maybe if you must, put the wall up but use a double door then you can store some of the larger tools on the garage side and wheel them in the shop as needed plus you can utilize both sides of the wall for storage cabinets and benches. Make a wish list of future tools that you want and start marking space for them and see how tight you will be then.

[Thom Porterfield]

Mark:

Although my shop is larger, due to restrictions that arose from an expansion, I have a restricted area between what amounts to two adjoined rooms that is 8' x 7' immediately in front of my table saw. It's not optimal but workable. Before the expansion, there were doors in that opening, and my shop was 17' square. The expansion gives me an additional 10' deep (through that door opening) x 17' wide, but almost half of that width is occupied by lumber storage and compressor/dust collector room. Before the expansion, I depended on good weather and opening those doors to have enough room to comfortably manipulate sheet goods, rip wood longer than 8', etc.

Thing about adding space is, at least in my case, that you wind up finding reasons to stash stuff in it...tools, parts, junk, etc...so I still need to open those doors, shuffle stuff out and whatnot, to feel comfortable (and more important, safe) in my shop. To be fair (or maybe it's unfair), the shop is still home to non-shop stuff like storage of things not allowed in the other storage facilities in the house (bicycles and camping gear, mostly).

I'd like to operate in all of the space in my shop, but for years, I've been operating in what amounts to a volume much like the one you describe. I think you'll enjoy the extra vertical surface adding the wall will afford, and the ability to turn large pieces of expensive wood into giant piles of sawdust without fouling the carburetor of your motorcycle.

Good luck!

[Dick Mahany]

I started the same way, in 1 bay of a 3 car garage. As my skills and my addiction grew, I quickly saw the need to expand occasionally into the 2nd bay. Then the third.

After many years I have worked a plan to have everything on wheels that can store into 1 bay. That way the vehicles can live in the shop , yet the garage can be fully configured for a full 3 bay operation if needed in about 10 minutes. The biggest thing that made all of this work, was a cyclone and overhead ducting with a number of terminating overhead down drops that keep the shop/garage clean. I am sooooooo glad that I never partitioned it off.

[Jeff Monson]

After many years I have worked a plan to have everything on wheels that can store into 1 bay. That way the vehicles can live in the shop , yet the garage can be fully configured for a full 3 bay operation if needed in about 10 minutes. The biggest thing that made all of this work, was a cyclone and overhead ducting with a number of terminating overhead down drops that keep the shop/garage clean. I am sooooooo glad that I never partitioned it off.

I'd have to agree with Dick, make things portable and use the extra space when needed. A partition will really limit your space, especially with the tools you have listed. Setup a good DC system and see how it works out for you.

[Steve Kohn]

I agree with other posters. If you continue with the hobby, and you are like the rest of us, your space needs will grow. However, the reasons for segmenting the garage are still valid. Have you considered a temporary wall consisting of 6 mill plastic sheeting hanging from hooks/wire/track from the ceiling. When woodworking you could use the curtain to segment the shop portion off. When not woodworking you can remove or draw the curtain back.

[Mark Felton]

telling you what to do is not so simply, do you have the property for a separate building/ workshop ? are your drive-way big enough to park the cars

Ray, don't have room for a separate building (I've been trying to convince my wife that we need to move! ) We live in town on about 1/4 acre and have restrictions on out-buildings. The cars do fit in the driveway (and on the street for my twin 18 year olds).

I'd sell the motorcycle (they're dangerous!! LOL!) and take over 2 bays of the garage!!

Chris, can't sell the motorcycle. In fact the only reason I have space problems is because I took my Goldwing $$$ and bought big tools!!!

After many years I have worked a plan to have everything on wheels that can store into 1 bay. That way the vehicles can live in the shop , yet the garage can be fully configured for a full 3 bay operation if needed in about 10 minutes. The biggest thing that made all of this work, was a cyclone and overhead ducting with a number of terminating overhead down drops that keep the shop/garage clean. I am sooooooo glad that I never partitioned it off.

Dick, I like the sound of this and my biggest challenge is problem learning to be more organized so I can pull this off without the wall.

Have you considered a temporary wall consisting of 6 mill plastic sheeting hanging from hooks/wire/track from the ceiling. When woodworking you could use the curtain to segment the shop portion off. When not woodworking you can remove or draw the curtain back.

Steve, that sounds like a good plan - especially when finishing a project. That would kind of help with controlling the environment.

Thanks so much everyone for the input. You guys have really given me good advice and a lot to think about. As I said, I think organization is the key. I think I can really have a dual purpose space (garage and workshop) with everything being mobile. Yesterday I ordered the Woodsmith publication "Setting Up Shop". Hopefully that will give me additional ideas on how to make this work more efficiently.

Mark

[Gordon Eyre]

Mark, I have a shop that takes up 1 1/2 stalls in a three car garage. I would not want a wall because when working with long boards it is necessary for me to turn my tool to allow the board to extend out into the remaining space. I have located my large table saw at the garage door so that I can put the door up when working with long lumber. It all works fine and I can handle most builds without completely re-positioning any of my major tools. To see pictures of my shop, click on my name and go to my albums. Since the pictures were taken I have added a bandsaw and it still works fine.

You will note that I have a dust collector which helps but my wife's car still gets dusty. I have a large duster and just run it over her car at the end of the day.

[Val Kosmider]

Steve makes a good suggestion about using plastic sheeting as a temporary wall.

I worked in a small basement shop for a long time. I wrapped the 'utilities' area off with plastic, and made a temporary wall which enclosed my dust producing machines and sanding bench area with plastic sheeting. It was a more 'permanent' deal for me so i stapled it to the joists, using lath strips where necessary.

It worked fine. When i needed to 'push out the wall' to cut a long board or otherwise temporarily needed more space it was a very flexibile solution.

It didn't contain all of the dust, it didn't do much for noise, and it didn't contain odors when finishing. But it did help for all three when a permanent wall was not an option.

I would recommend trying it to see how the space 'feels' and going from there as your needs increase. Think of it as a full size temporary 'plan' for what you might ultimately wish to construct.

[Mark Felton]

Mark, I have a shop that takes up 1 1/2 stalls in a three car garage. I would not want a wall because when working with long boards it is necessary for me to turn my tool to allow the board to extend out into the remaining space. I have located my large table saw at the garage door so that I can put the door up when working with long lumber. It all works fine and I can handle most builds without completely re-positioning any of my major tools. To see pictures of my shop, click on my name and go to my albums. Since the pictures were taken I have added a bandsaw and it still works fine.

You will note that I have a dust collector which helps but my wife's car still gets dusty. I have a large duster and just run it over her car at the end of the day.

That's a great setup, Gordon! I'm not nearly that far along but I'm making progress. Dust collection is one of my next few priorities. I've got several things I want to get done in setting up shop, it is sometimes difficult to keep things prioritized properly. I like the overhead dust collection chutes in your setup. I may do that but I have 12' ceilings in my garage so I'm thinking that would be quite an undertaking. I think one of the issues I'm dealing with is the non-woodworking clutter in my garage that gets in the way of the woodworking stuff. I guess spring is the time to spring clean, huh?!?

[Jim Neeley]

Jims Wood Storage 200k.jpg

My shop is 3 cars wide with one end made double-deep (4 car total), one of which is used for my brides car. Always being short on storage, I built an 8' long double-sided storage rack with space for sheet goods in the middle. I'm currently using one side for wood and the other for tools but expect to migrate the tools to other storage over time and make it all wood. The rack serves as my "wall". Additionally I placed a couple of fluorescent fixtures on top shining upwards to provide some indirect work light in the room.

The "downside" of this approach is that access to the wood supply you see here is difficult when the car is in the garage. It doesn't take much to back it outside though!

The "upside" is that I'm not giving up dedicated space for access to my wood. As a hobbiest I don't go through that much wood. Besides, during the summer here in Alaska, she's willing to park outside.
My Bride takes very good care of me!! :-)

Just my $0.02.. YMMV.

Jim in Alaska

[Mark Felton]

That's pretty awesome, Jim! Did you design that yourself or get the idea from somewhere (i.e, magazine, website, etc.). Looks like pretty straightforward 2x framing with plywood "walls". Is that correct? What are the basic dimensions? I'm assuming you built it to hold whole 4x8 sheet goods, right? That seems like a really good idea. Any additional info you can provide would be greatly appreciated! Thanks again!

Mark