Considering The Little Shop

[Julie Moriarty]

If people can live in 300 sq/ft, why can't I figure out how to live with a little shop? Like less than 100 sq/ft.

Some ideas are to take a page from the Green Kool Aid world and make everything portable and easily broken down and set up. Some other ideas include the Ferris wheel of tools bench concept, like a planer and drum sander attached on opposite sides of a rotating table. Another would be to sell all the big stuff and buy a combo machine, but they are kinda expensive.

How this all came about is when the house we have a contract on was looking more and more like a money pit. We've made an price adjustment request to reflect the deficiencies found in the inspection but they could easily say no. So yesterday we looked at two other houses, as backup, and the one I liked had a one car garage with a small shop area in the back of it, and no immediate repairs needed. The wheels started turning and in a while I found myself actually liking the idea of the little shop.

Tell me about your little shop.

[Chris Padilla]

My little shop needs more room! LOL!

[Mark Blatter]

I currently work in a 19 x 21 garage that has never seen one of my cars. The issue is that my tools are designed for a larger shop, so I struggle with space. One issue I would have with a small shop is the project, not the tools. I could down-size, change out, etc. as you mentioned, but you still need a certain amount of space for projects. It also depends on the type of projects you build. If it is all small boxes, carvings, etc. it would work. I recently completed some commercial shelving that was a real struggle. The only way I could complete the job was to buy a 6 x 12 trailer that I used for storage, first of materials, then of pieces as they were completed. If you build furniture, like a Morris Chair, or book cases, etc, a small shop will be tough unless you have room to expand into when needed.

Another issue I had was the constantly needing to put away one tool so I could pull out another, use it for 20 minutes, then pull the first one back out. Perhaps just bad management on my part, but I find a certain sequence of tools needed and to put every tool away in between using it takes a great deal of time. To be organized, I think you need a certain amount of space, but again, it depends on the projects you build/work on and thus the materials needed.

I am trying desperately to get a shop up this fall so I can be more effective with my time and materials. Too big is bad too, but I am looking at a 26 x 36 which I think will be just about perfect. It has to be as that is all the room I have to build it.

[ian maybury]

I think one very big factor in the feasibility of it all is the size of the work you do. Think it is likely to wear thin very quickly in the event that you build kitchens or something - unless perhaps type of work is very highly standardised. Painting and assembly need space, as does moving and cutting down sheet material. There's a requirement for at least minimal walkways to transport material between machines too. Against that - potentially much less of an issue if you build boxes or other small stuff..

There's also a classic design problem that kicks in. It's always possible to design a multi-functional assembly (aka workshop), but the more optimised and the more functions that are built into it the less flexible it becomes in terms of handling what it wasn't designed for. Put another way (as in the case of a combination machine) - the nature of the beast imposes contraints on working methods and capacities, and makes it hard to change or upgrade aspects of functionality in isolation.

Another issue when space is tight is that there can be a shortage of places to put down tools, to park materials close to the point of use when a job is in progress etc

[Tom Deutsch]

As far as I can tell, the main reason peoples' shops "need" to be bigger than 100 squares is machines. Many old-timers worked out of tiny basement shops with a little table saw, a carpenter's workbench and hand tools (to do all of the work our machines do.) When working with big stuff, you'd need to rely on saw horses and scrap to make everything sit level; no big wide extension tables. Are you going to do it, Julie?

[William Adams]

I mostly use hand tools, so my workshop is a workbench and some storage at one end of the basement.

Larger projects get done on the back deck, weather permitting, using a Workmate and maybe an old pallet as work surfaces. I use old picnic benches as saw benches clamp longer stuff to the deck railing

[Peter Aeschliman]

As others have said, I think the key is to consider the projects that give you the most joy. Think back to the things you've made over the years, and narrow down the list to the projects that you loved making.

Then work your way back from there in terms of machinery and space needs.

100 sqft would never work for me personally. But if you only want to do wood turning, or only want to use hand tools, and you don't plan to make dining tables, bedroom sets, or cabinets, then 100 sqft could work out great.

As a backup, does the home have a big enough property to build a shop, or a big enough basement in case you end up hating the small shop?

[Mark Patoka]

My little shop is too little. Just like you can never have enough clamps, I don't think you can ever have enough shop space. I lived in an apartment for 8 months and my shop then consisted of only a scrollsaw in my living room. You end up making due with what you have.

[Jim Dwight]

When I was married to my first wife many years ago, we lived in a two bedroom apartment. We slept in one bedroom and I did woodworking in the other. I built a kitchen table that could seat 10, a sofa bed, a loveseat and other things in that apartment. I had to make a deal with the upstairs neighbors to have them not complain about noise. It was very tight and the only finish I could use was wipe on. But things got made.

My current shop is 14x24, or 336 ft2. The one before that was about 400 ft2 (irregular in shape). I built several bedroom sets and lots of other things in the old shop. Not a lot in the current one so far. I also built a complete kitchen in the front part of a 2 car garage going back 1 more house. I had to do a few cabinets at a time and install them then start the next set. I think something on the order of a one car garage is about the minimum if you want the ability to make furniture. I've read of people getting by with less but it seemed to involve working outside when working on bigger projects. I know when I was in the apartment, I had to expand into other rooms or go out on the patio sometimes.

[Scott DelPorte]

I worked out of a small spare bedroom for many years when i first started learning how to build acoustic guitars. I wasn't resawing at the time, so I could easily work with a modest set of hand tools and work off a single bench. My wife surprised me with a little Sjoberg bench for my birthday once, which was a big step up from the Black and Decker Workmate I had been using. I used (and still have) a small benchtop bandsaw, corded hand drill and a router, but everything else was pretty much done with planes, files, handsaws and chisels. I would spray lacquer in the garage with the door open so it didn't get on the carpet in my "woodshop".

I later shared workshop space with a group of students at a professional luthiers house for several years. The shop was maybe 300 ft sq, but there were usually 4 students who worked on individual benches under the tutelage the luthier. Lack of space didn't end up being a problem because it was a mostly hand tool shop too. He did have a separate wood storage and tool room that had a 14" bandsaw for resawing and a drill press. Dust collection was a broom and dustpan and so we joked about our "luthier's cologne" being the smell we took after being coated with dust from different fragrant woods that are commonly used like rosewoods, spanish cedar, cypress.

I eventually had the opportunity to build a separate shop and now enjoy the convenience of power tools and dust collection. In the end, the work doesn't have any higher quality than when I built mostly by hand in a smaller shop. I can however turn out bad work much faster now.

[Jesse Busenitz]

I was in a 22x22 shop and it worked great until I moved from small furniture projects/luthier stuff to cabinets.... You run out of space quick. But one thing I did like was you were never far from any tool you needed, and it also made you keep everything organized/clean or you didn't have any place to work. That being said you can make it work, your just a lot more inefficient. Mobile bases are a must. Cheaper to heat/cool too.

[Larry Frank]

It must be quite difficult to move to a smaller shop. I would need a pretty major reason to give mine up. My shop is 15 x 35 and really envy those with larger shops. I am retired and a big part of my retirement plan was to spend time in my shop just making whatever interested me.

Good Luck making it work out.

[Julie Moriarty]

When I was packing up the shop I was certain I'd need a shop just as big or bigger in the new place. Yesterday I see this house with a 1 car garage and little work room and it's like a revelation. I couldn't explain it but it was like I figured out the Fibonacci sequence but had no idea how. I think what happened was I realized big shops allowed one to do big work. And I realized that isn't how I want to spend how ever many good years I have left.

We contracted to buy a house not for what it was but for what we could make it. When I saw that little workshop I think little projects began dancing in my head and big projects vanished from my thoughts. And that other house didn't look so good anymore.

I haven't committed to it yet but right now I'm liking the idea of selling my big tools and spending more time enjoying sailing, golfing, tennis, and maybe even Pickleball. Ahhhh... Life in Del Boca Vista!

[david minnery]

My shop is 19'x10'. I have a small Camaster CNC, a grizzly table saw with router wing, a large workbench with a scroll saw, spindle sander and a ridgid belt sander. I also have a 14" bandsaw and new powermatic drill press. I also have a 1.5 dust collector with a trash can and superdust deputy.My cnc requires a desktop computer, so that takes up more space. I just got a laser engraver with a 2'x3' cutting area, this prompted me to to build a shed to store my wood. I had to get a track saw as I no longer have the room to rip more than 30". It's tight and I have help two days a week, it's hard to negotiate with two of us in there but it works. For what I do I don't need room to clamp or work on large pieces.
It works, but I'm in serious need of a bigger shop.
It's amazing what you can do within the boundaries you are given. Rafters are also great for storing wood!

[Val Kosmider]

I worked for several years in a 10 x 12 sq ft basement "shop". I had a set of shelves for tools and supplies, a table saw, a band saw, a dust collector and a drill press. Everything had multiple uses...like the "table" of the table saw was also a bench.

Was it easy? NO. And if I had a choice, which I do now, and still only have a 15 x 25 shop, I would go slightly bigger.

But, it is what I had, and I built a LOT of stuff in that shop. You learn to work around things, and "make do", and figure out how to get things done that someone in a larger shop would simply approach in a more straightforward manner. Everything was certainly within reach! Many times if I had a tool pulled out, I had to squeeze between it and another machine, or literally duck under the table saw extensions. The biggest drawbacks were noise, dust, and smells from finishes--which really had nothing to do with "size".

In conclusion, I would say that a ten by fifteen foot shop would allow for just about any imaginable project--unless you started building boats!