Moving unexpectedly

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Question for you guys. Looks like I'm moving unexpectedly. I've been leasing our current place, but the owner wants to move back in after I fixed it up very nicely. Yep I'm an idiot for that. Of course it's super short notice, and I'm trying to figure some things out. Because I don't want to end up here again, I'm probably going to trade this big farmstead for a house in town. Makes sense on all levels except for the woodshop.

Here's the question, should I liquidate my tools and buy ones that fit the new space as needed, or store the tools until new space can be bought/built. I hate to sell them all, there is an emotional thing there, but because we haven't even picked the new house/garage, it may be the best idea. Thoughts????

[Myk Rian]

Store them.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Store them.

Except, perhaps, any that you are annoyed with / have outgrown, and want to upgrade. No need to drag them around with you.

For example - I have upgraded jointer, DP, and mortiser over the years.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I don't want to upgrade anything actually, well except the time I have to use them. Some of this stuff would cost three to four times what I'd get by selling to replace. The leading contender is a big single car garage, but some space to add on. My Felder just plain won't fit until adding on for example.

[Jim Rimmer]

Store them.

That's what I would do.

[Leigh Betsch]

Sorry to hear you need to move to town. I agree it usually makes the most sense dollar wise but it would kill me living in town again. We bought a lake cabin with plenty of open space for me and the dogs, but we still have neighbors, seems to be going ok though. Course we still have the farm place too. I have thought about taking a job transfer, building a shop at the lake to move the tools into, with the plans to come back in a few years ans retire there. But that would also be a lot of hassle just for a few more years of work.
Id keep the tools, you won't get full value, but it will still cost full value to replace. Of course if you do sell I need to know if a nice green Oliver lathe is on the list. Don't suppose you'd take a nice radial arm saw on trade?.

[Stephen Tashiro]

Putting things in storage often amounts to foisting the task of throwing them away onto your heirs. What will storage cost?

Some tools that are good today are destined to become obsolete - at least for people who want convenience. For example, a person who put small corded drills in storage 10 years ago would probably end up using cordless drills today. Perhaps the same will happen for other corded tools. The corded hitachi hand planer I had years ago did not have the convenient tab on it that lets me set the planer down flat when I'm not using it. I replaced it with a Ryobi, which also has a more convenient depth adjustment. The Craftsman air compessor I had worked well but it was so loud that I hesitated to use it when the neighbors were around. I replaced it with a quieter Makita. If you move to town, you'll have to think about tool noise It's more common to hear brags like "I have a 25 ton buzz saw that was made in 1913 and no modern tool can compare to it" than to hear pleasant comments about a neighbor who has one.

An interesting question is how much you enjoy using tools to fix other tools and make environments for other tools - versus using tools to make non-tool things. If you enjoy building a workshop as much a using a workshop then storing a cache of bulky tools would give you justification for using tools to provide a better home for them.

[Larry Browning]

Storage costs can get away from you in a hurry. So all that extra money you would have saved by not selling can soon be gone and then some if have to store things longer than expected.
I'm not saying this is what I would do, I would probably do the storage thing and then realize sometime in the future that I had already spent more on storage than my tools were worth. Then I would justify still not selling because I would think that I would be moving them out of storage "very soon" and 2 years later say "sure wish I would have sold that stuff 2 years ago!" Of course, on the other hand, 2 weeks after I had had a big sale and gotten half of what I thought I was gonna get, a new shop would fall into my lap.
You just can't win, no matter what you do!

[Larry Edgerton]

I've got room here Steve........

Don't do it. If nothing else find a place with just a storage building that you can buy/rent till the shock of all this is over. You have some very nice stuff and if you sell it at a loss you will probably never replace it. I have gone through two catastrophic divorces, but I always made sure I still had my tools. Each purchase was a little financially painful and I just would not want to do that twice.

Houses? They come and go, but good tools are forever.

Sorry about your difficulties, but this too will pass and you may find yourself in a better place.

Larry

Leigh, if you are on that lake outside of Watertown I wrecked a 71 Cuda' convertible going around that lake. Those were the days.........

[Wade Lippman]

I moved three years ago and sold all my tools except the small valuable ones (kapex, Jet 1642...) Then I bought the ones I really wanted based on a few years of experience with the old ones. YMMV

[Brian Elfert]

I don't know what storage costs in your area, but I was quoted $200 a month for storage back in May for a 10x20. You have to think about storage costs versus what the tools would cost to re-buy.

I can't believe what people pay to store. I know people who have sold their house and started full time RVing who stored heirloom furniture. They often end up getting rid of the stuff after paying thousands in storage fees.

[Andrew Joiner]

Any chance of leasing just the shop building at your current location? It will all work out somehow, Steve. I would keep it as simple as you can. Selling would take time and you do want the tools. Can you store in the single car garage at the new place until you add on?

[Leigh Betsch]

Leigh, if you are on that lake outside of Watertown I wrecked a 71 Cuda' convertible going around that lake. Those were the days.........

not Kapeska, Lake Henricks, over on the SD/MN boarder. In 1976 I got my Pontiac reared ended by a Cuda, totaled them both. Those really were the days.

One thought I have kicking around is to find a closed down store in one of the small local towns and just rent it instead of building a shop. Maybe even take on a few projects for the locals.

[Jim Koepke]

I've been leasing our current place, but the owner wants to move back in after I fixed it up very nicely. Yep I'm an idiot for that. Of course it's super short notice, and I'm trying to figure some things out.

Something seems off to me. My understanding is a lease doesn't allow for "super short notice" unless you just assumed the lease would be renewed.

As to your fixes to the property are they something you can bill the current owner for fixing? Sometimes just the suggestion of such can put the brakes on moving.

In a forced quick sale of your equipment you will not get what it is worth, let alone enough to replace it all.

The ideas others have suggested like renting an abandoned store or shop might be a better idea than storage.

jtk

[Wayne Hendrix]

Just went though a similar move, mine wasn't so short of notice, but I went from shop space to no shop space. Also I will be moving again next year and will not know what city I am moving to until March and probably wont have any idea on shop space until a week or two before I move. With the uncertainty I sold some tools and stored others. Basically I sold anything big, e.g. drill press, stationary disc sander, table saw, dust collector etc, and stored smaller things or things I really didn't want to part with like my midi-lathe. I tried to keep tools that had multiple uses while getting rid of tools that had a very specific seldom used purpose.

I also narrowed my focus, instead of making whatever appealed to me or what I needed furniture wise, I decided to concentrate on smaller items and integrate more hand tools such as planers. I also looked at other ways to do things such as instead of my table saw I will now use a track saw for straight cuts and a router for dadoes/rabbets. Going to the smaller hand tools makes it so I can still do bigger things with a smaller tool footprint. I have been reading the different magazines and looking for the ways to make things portable, collapsible and smaller. I still need to make a small collapsible router table I can store indoors and assemble outside to use and I want to make a collapsing leg assembly table that will double as a game/card/spare table around the home.

It has been a major change in how I do wood working, but it wasn't bad. I feel more streamlined and enjoy the challenge of finding new ways to do things. And honestly, I really don't feel limited. I don't know if this helps at all, I was hoping to give you some insight in the thought process I used to decide what to do with my tools.