Need recommendations on new shop layout

Sep 15, 2005 5 Replies
H

This is my first posting to this group. Please bear with me.



I am building a new house which will have my shop in the basement. When I designed the house I included 4' wide stairs from garage directly into the basement so getting long lumber or sheet goods into the basement shop will be easy.



I need your ideas of how you would layout a new shop. I know it has alot to do with the way I like working and the tools that I have and the types of projects that I build but I really don't want that to influence you. I want to know how you would layout it out. From your ideas I will grab the ideas that fit my style. The real reason I am asking for your help is that this will be my 4th shop and hopefully my last one. I seem to keep laying out my shops in a similar manner and so I am thinking that maybe my thinking is too narrow and someone else would have good ideas for the new shop layout.



The machine room will be 25' x 15' and the secondary room will be



12'x15'.

If you would like to give me some recommendations I can email you a PDF file of how the two rooms are arranged.



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S

Welcome ...

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Easyshop designer software may be helpful to you.

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B

After building 4 shops and they all basically come out with the same setup - then read the writing on the wall. Your subconscious is telling you what will work for you. And while asking for some ideas is fine, I'll bet your final shop layout will closely resemble that last one that you felt worked best for your circumstances.

Trust your instincts,

Bob S.

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R

Try out the layout tool from Grizzly

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S

I pretty much agree with Bob. However, tooling (including benches) does drive how we work, and how we work drives an efficent layout. That said, I think that the only thing that will induce you to use a new shop design is to change the tool set.

There are 2 tooling additions that changed the way I work, both of them "benches". Bench 1 is essentially a classic european-type bench with access on all 4 sides. Having a non-wall-mount bench is really nice.

The other was a fixed 4x4 melamine outfeed table for the saw. It has turned out to be an excellent surface for painting, glueing and just about any non-pounding activity. It's dead-flat and drips of any kind scrape right off. It happens to make apretty good outfeed table too. The trash can a shop vac live underneath.

-Steve

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