Lofts or Second Floors of a Shop

[Bud Millis]

If you have lofts or second floors to your shop, how are you using the space?

[Jim Becker]

Storage including my lumber racks.

[Paul Kinneberg]

WW library, desk, storage, industrial sewing machine station which includes cut table etc.

[Scott DelPorte]

I store the bulk of my lumber up on the second floor

[Mike Ontko]

It's not completely related, but I knew an artist--a sculptor who worked in bronze castings--that had a converted barn as his studio. He used the loft area as his main office and design space (most of his sculpting work was in clay and wax), then did any related production work on the ground floor. Due to the nature of the work though, there weren't a lot (or any?) machines on the ground floor. But this concept could work for any type of shop, depending on the amount of headroom and floor space in your loft area.

[Peter Kelly]

Dust collector and wood storage in the upstairs of the barn.

Can't recommend having the dust collector outside you're work space enough. Best improvement I've made to the shop.

[Thomas Bank]

Second floor IS my woodworking shop. First floor is my metal and automotive shop.

[roger wiegand]

My second story is the former hay loft. I don't trust the structure of my barn enough anymore to keep really heavy stuff up there, but my intention is to use the space for project staging. I do projects like rebuilding antique mechanical music instruments. Having space to lay out the various sub-assemblies and parts in an orderly way where they won't be disturbed will be a welcome change to having everything in my main working space. I've thought about, but not yet really planned putting a spray booth up there.

Lots of shops I've visited in very old buildings over in Europe have lifts installed to move larger/heavier stuff up and down between floors for occasional use-- basically they cut out a piece of floor and hang it on steel cables connected to a hoist. They use some things like oversize door bolts to anchor it in place most of the time so it normally functions as regular floor space, but it takes just a few minutes to convert it into a lift. Seems like a clever way to make use of space for things where you wouldn't or couldn't get them up the stairs.

[mark kosse]

to store a bunch of crap, seriously!

I was standing up on the second floor looking down on all the other stuff I have and I said to myself "mark, You have too much crap." So i went to the flea market and bought 10 craftsman 4" c clamps, 2, 5' pipe clamps, a saw that dates to prior to 1875, a ancient draw knife, a tack hammer, cast iron Craftsman rolling lawn sprinkler and other things with 65.00. I feel much better now...

Just move it on over.

[Jon Endres]

I am working on finishing my shop, so there's nothing in it yet, but I built mine with a second floor expressly for the purpose of storing lumber. I have somewhere between 6,000 and 8,000 board feet of mixed lumber and the second floor was designed extra heavy (100 psf live load) to allow lumber storage. The lumber is in several different locations now, including my basement, shed, a conex box (shipping container) and my brother's shed across town. It will be all sorted and consolidated once I move it.

I might also put my model railroad layout up there if I can find space for it.