We're moving houses soon, and I'll be going from a small garage shared with bikes, laundry, and kids to my very own corner of the basement in our new home. Because of the aforementioned constraints, I've made do almost exclusively with small tools – a track saw, but no table saw. I have a lunchbox planer but no drill press, band saw, or jointer. I've learned to use and enjoy hand tools and use them where I can. The one exception to this is I own an x-carve CNC, which my wife insisted we buy, thinking it would reduce the chance I cut off my fingers. Whether it's because of the CNC or not, I'm happy to report that I still have all my fingers...

You can see the dimensions of the new space below. Because it's a basement, my inclination is to stick with benchtop tools. I'm not sure I could get 250lb+ tools down there safely. And then use that to my advantage as I can put the planer/jointer/miter saw away below the worktop when they're not in use. Or maybe I turn the long worktop into a miter saw station, and I use the outfeed table as the surface for the bench top jointer/planer.

I was thinking of building a compact table saw into a 4x8 outfeed/assembly table, putting my dust extractor and air filter under the table, and either adding a router table plate to the outfeed table, or hanging a folding one off the side. Hand tool workbench at the top next to the CNC, with a dedicated pegboard for hand tool gear, maybe a plane till. But maybe that's extraneous and I should just put a vise on the assembly table. And I've never owned a bandsaw, but feel like I can probably do without one to start.

The closet on the right is house mechanical stuff. Furnace, water heater, etc. Can't be moved, doors can't be blocked.

What are your first impressions? Please limit feedback to layout and types of tools – let's leave particular brands for a separate conversation. Thanks!

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