The first weekend in June my dad helped me move all my shop stuff from the 1 car garage in the rental townhouse, to the basement of our new house. This was no easy feat, and I am very grateful to him for helping.
This will be the first time my shop is inside. Like everything there are pros and cons.
Pros:
- Climate controlled
- Laminate floor (would prefer hardwood, but it's better than concrete)
- I might actually see my family while in the shop
- Less rust
- More walls
- Two rooms (hand and machine shops)
Cons:
- Must be diligent with dust collection
- Need to run a few extra circuits through finished walls
- Could be noisy in the rest of the house
- Less lumber storage (likely in garage)
- Can only spray in garage (though this could also be a pro since it could be thought of as a separate spray room)
- Current table saw bench doesn't fit through the doors (though I need to rebuild it anyways since the casters can't swing fully)
Luckily I thought about most of these before purchasing the house. My dad brought back my Oneida cyclone which he was kind enough to store and help install. The shop will be furthest from the bedrooms, and there are doors that can be upgraded to provide some better noise/dust control. I can free up 10 slots in the breaker box, and I can see where to route the wires about 90% of the way. I will have to be careful with lumber purchases but an oversized garage and lumber stores open on the weekend will help.
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| Hand tool room. Roughly half of 17' x 17' |
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| Machine room (11'x16' and really hard to take a picture) |
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| Okay, so the ceilings are 7'8" and my dust collector is 8'... nothing's perfect. |
While I would love to spend two weeks getting the shop all setup and ready to go, I have a day job. Oh and a house that needs new lighting fixtures, a bathroom fan, and a handful of other projects. Progress on the shop will be slow and steady, but now there is light at the end of the tunnel (behind all the boxes).
