I need help planning out my garage workspace...

[JimTheSoundman]

Just moved into a new house and I need help maximizing my workflow in my new space.

My garage is 24' long by 14' wide. So basically a single car garage.

One end has a 10' wide roll up door, of course.

There is one side door, and two windows. I've made a diagram.

Here's what I need to fit in there:

Primary tools:

• Hitachi jobsite table saw, needs a 48 x 36 space
• Hitachi sliding miter saw, I'd love to be able to integrate that into one big unit with the tablesaw, but that may be wishful thinking.
• Router table, I have one that is essentially about 48x48, but I could build a smaller one, or integrate it into something with the table saw
• Standing drill press, needs about a 12" w by 24" deep space
• Bandsaw, needs about a 30"by 30" space.
• Bench mounted belt sander, needs about a 12" wide space on a benchtop
  
• And I need a workbench where I can mount my vise and bench grinder

Also have some tools which are needed, but rarely used; they could be stowed somehow, flip over benchtop thing maybe? I'd prefer not to have to haul them out of a closet or cabinet every time I use them but if that's the only way to do it, then that's what I'll do.

• 6"jointer, it's small and I can mount it on a rolling cabinet to store below a work surface if needed.
• DeWalt thickness planer. This is heavy, so it needs to go on a rolling cabinet or rolling stand definitely. I can store this under another workbench if needed just like the jointer.
• Scroll Saw.
• 36" lathe. This is clunky to setup and use, so I don't know what to do with this. It takes up a lot of room, but it has a belt and motor also, so it's tough to do for a fliptop setup, but that would be the ideal situation.
• I also have two other bench grinders, one which has wire wheels, and one which has cloth polishing wheels, but I can put them on some sort of pole stand or rolling cart.

I also need storage for 2x4's, 1x6's, etc, and a bit of storage for sheet goods, maybe 6 full sheets of plywood? But putting that against a wall wrecks a lot of worksurface options, so I don't know what to do about that. I guess I could build a loft of some sort if I had to, but I'd prefer not to do that.

I'd prefer to make and build everything myself rather than buy some cabinets from Home Depot or whatever. I have the skills and the time.

I do need storage, but I can fill that in after getting the main workflow sorted out. I will not be using a dust collection system, I just hook a shop vac up to whatever device I'm cutting with.

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[TurnipTruck]

Every time someone asked me to draw a house/building/addition, I would ask them to save pictures of what they liked/needed/wanted. Nowadays I would ask for screenshots. So give us at least a direction you are thinking or we here on this forum will all suggest the most expensive possible solution.

I saved a month of shop time by just buying $500 of Depot cabinets, but maybe you can build exactly what you need yourself. Will you be parking anything inside?

 

[JimTheSoundman]

Will you be parking anything inside?

Nope, the entire space is mine. And actually there is a second attached room where I'm going to put all the "non woodworking" stuff, like 3d printer, soldering station, etc. So a lot of my storage needs will be handled over there.
The main things I want to accomplish are:

• Getting my miter saw, table saw, and router table in close proximity, so it's easy to use all three.
• Then probably getting bandsaw, bench sander, and drill press in close proximity, as I tend to use those three together.
• I'd love to find an easy way to set up and ditch my lathe. Like how you can have a hide-a-bed inside a couch.
• Storing wood will be a challenge. I haven't quite figured out how to do that.
• My wife wants a 5x5 area near the rollup garage door to store all the gardening tools. Annoying, but one must choose his battles carefully.

I watch these guys on YouTube make these flip top rolling carts, so you can flip your thickness planer over and on the underside is your jointer or scroll saw. I'd love to do that, it would make my life much easier, but then I get thinking that after I do that, I'll have all these rolling carts everywhere. One with my thickness planer, one with my clamps, one with my bench grinder, and on and on and on. So I'll be playing tetris with these carts every time I want to build something. So I'm not sure that's the way to go, but it would be cool.

 

[Mike007]

I was setting up a small garage sheet metal shop. I made a scaled diagram of the floor on graph paper. Then I cut out pieces of graph paper of the equipment to scale. It was much easier shuffling the paper around to figure out what layout worked best vs moving equipment.

 

[Rst277]

You can scope out a bunch of different shops online and see what you think will work best for you. Pick one and try it out. Shops evolve, get everything in there and start doing projects and you will figure out where stuff needs to go, what kind of storage you need, etc. The best scenario is that you can pause a project and make improvements in the shop or do it after finishing a project. Build or buy what you need now and if your set up changes in a year or two, sell what you don't need and keep going.

 

[M.Brane]

I like having everything on wheels so I can reconfigure depending on the job. It also makes it easy clean up. I just got rid of some horrible fixed shelves on one wall. Nearly everything on them fit onto a much smaller rolling shelf, and now there's a whole lot more room to work with.

 

[72Anthony]

Incorporate the router into the table saw.

Also build storage into your outfeed table, such as mobile carts or shelves/cabinets.

Keep the miter saw along a wall. You can have cabinets or open areas for mobile things underneath and upper cabinets ot lumber storage above.

Watch a bunch of 1 and 2 car woodshop tours on youtube...that will give you lots of ideas.

 

[RoninB4]

-To me, the planning and layout stage is the most important part. I would suggest considering the workflow, how raw materials/projects come in the designated door and how the finished project gets out the door. Same thing goes for power outlets, how close and how many will be needed.

-The previous suggestion of scale objects to put on graph paper is a good idea, I cheated by using a 3D CAD program but the intent is the same and saved me a lot of head scratching by dropping some thing in place just once.

-I also put as many heavy/bulky things on casters to move in/out of the way. Ergonomics of using things chews up a lot of space.

-The "flip top" idea for converting machines to useable horizontal surfaces is a good idea but be forewarned that any open horizontal surface will be loaded up with other things in short order. I have an 800 lb. granite surface plate (w/protective cover)that hasn't seen the light of day in months.

 

[MushCreek]

Most of my stuff is on wheels- bandsaw, table saw, miter saw, horizontal steel cutting bandsaw, welder, planer, and belt sander. The only things that don't roll are the metal lathe and the milling machine. If the weather is decent, I like rolling the wood working machines outside to keep the dust out of the shop. I use my shop for parking a car as well, so everything needs to roll out of the way.

I agree with making scale models of machines cut out of paper, and moving them around. I often lay stuff out in CAD, and you can likewise move stuff around.

 

[Rst277]

One major improvement I made in my 16x24 garage was to put a 24" deep shelf at about 6' high down the two long sides. Great way to increase storage, reduce clutter and since you will have machines or benches along the walls you are not losing any usable space.

 

[LeeG]

Figure the max sizes of lumber and plywood you plan on running through your table saw, the place the saw so that is doable. That gives you an anchor you can start placing everything else around.

I have a somewhat larger, 24x24 space, but due to the climate I live in, I am able to drag things out to the driveway when I need more room. That is how I use my jointer/planer/miter saw. It would be much nicer to leave them set up all the time, but not enough space, so I had to compromise.

Look through my shop thread, and others in the size you have and get some ideas. Let your own workflow and equipment evolve your space.

 

[CraigStu]

I love having everything on wheels. I have some on moving dollies from HF and some on small 4 drawer tool carts from Craftsman. The tool carts are better because they usually have 2 stationary wheels and 2 swiveling casters and some of them lock. Also the 4 drawers offer storage for supplies related to that tool. Keep an eye on sales at HD and L for the carts. When building or modifying dollies or carts work on adjusting heights so some are the same. It is really helpful when doing a bandsaw cut on an 8ft piece of wood trim that the other end can sit on the metal cutting bandsaw. Like Mushcreek, especially w/ the radial arm saw, I like rolling it outside when I can. One of the cars has a garage door remote velcroed to the console. It grab that, put it in my pocket, and before each cut close the door.