Garage Workshop Ideas

Woodworkers come in a wide spectrum of types, from the completely organized to the completely scattered. Organizing your woodworking shop so that you can find all your tools when you need them, and have room to work, will enhancing your personal style and enjoyment.

Workshop Layout

Garage and Basement Woodworking Shop Layout Garages and Basements are popular spots to set-up woodworking shops. If you are in a similar situation you can look at these pages to get ideas of what is possible.


Successfully Setting Up a Home Woodworking Shop

How to set up woodworking shop should be determine using your own personalized decisions. There is no single right way, so set it up using your own individualized needs and inclination, don't let anyone influence you into making choice that are not what you want, it's your workshop build it your way.


Tips on Setting Up a Two Car Garage Woodwork Shop

The Two-Car Wood Shop reverts into a garage at night and all woodworking materials, tools and equipment are stored along the perimeter walls. This can consume 30-40 linear feet of wall at an average depth of 18 inches. In most garage configurations this will still allow one wall for storage of non-woodworking possessions, should there be any.

Storing a shop this tightly can't be achieved in haphazard steps - it requires a strategy. Periodic restructuring is possible but not an effective use of time or materials, so a good set of guiding concepts is called for. Everything in the shop has storage characteristics: bulk, weight, frequency of use, susceptibility to damage or dust, etc. If space is allocated by such characteristics then the shop can expand comfortably as more equipment is acquired.


Designing a Home Wood Shop

Setting-up a home woodworking shop, design and setting up your shop in the most efficient, cost effective manner you can determine.


Maintaining a Wood Shop with Limited Space

The space available for a home shop varies in each case. By examining how other is similar situation handle the situation, may give you ideas of how you can handle your own situation.


Home Shops with all the Bells and Whistles

Some home shop are less limited by space and cost and can build a full featured shop. Maybe like most you can only dream of such a space, but you can also make use of some of the ideas.


Organizing Woodwork Tools

Organizing your tools is a low-cost yet efficient way to organize your home shop, while making it easier to keep track of all your tools.


Wood Shop Layout Ideas

Using ideas from other woodworking shops, while avoiding their mistakes is an excellent way to design and set-up your own shop.


Woodworking Shop Organization

You have various option to set-up or improve the arrangement of your woodworking shop. By adding efficient equipment you can increase you organization, and improve your woodworking experience.


My Basement Workshop

In 2007, I moved to a different city. So, I needed to set up a new workshop at my new place. My old workshop was in a garage, but this time, I put the workshop in the basement. Initially, I figured this would be an interim measure until I could build a building for the workshop. But with the harsher Ottawa climate, I realized that having a basement workshop does have the advantage that I don't have to heat it up before going in there. This means that it's worth going in there for just 20 minutes of tinkering here and there, even in the winter.


Shop Layout

The shop you see in the layout is my current setup and has evolved over many years to accommodate most importantly the acquisition of newer equipment but also better work flow. It is a free standing 2 story Gambrel style barn with office and storage space on the second level. Lumber and supplies are moved in and out of the shop through the front overhead door. To the left of the door are the lumber and plywood storage racks. Across from the lumber rack and to the right of the overhead door is the radial arm saw, miter saw and mortiser utilizing a single fence system for all operations.