How big is big enough?

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pmpartain

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Apr 13, 2006
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232
Location
Fayetteville, AR, USA.
At some point, I am planning to build a detached shop from the house. Some people say to build 30 X 40 which is way to big I think. I came across a deal for trusses for 400 bucks (includes a room above the ceilling for storage, etc.) for a 20 X 24 building. I need room for the lathe, table saw, band saw, drill press, worktable and other assorted stuff. Can anybody speak from experience on this one? I know bigger is always better and it depends how much money you want to spend (in my case as little as necessary). I also want to store my riding mower in there. Right now I'm working in less than half of a 2 car garage with everything packed against the walls. Have to pull the stuff to the middle of the floor to use some of it.

Thanks
 
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your best friend is graph paper. draw each piece of equipment with its required working space and then lay them out. don't forget storage. and walking space. and duct work, etc.
 
Rockler or one of the ww sites have a free system that you can print out the graph paper and small pics of different tools so that you can lay it all out, of course you can do it with paper yourself but the way that I write I could not read it. I built my shop about 6 years ago, it is 16X24 and is to small for me I feel. If you are going to do flat work and maybe use it as a repair shop for other items like I do, I would have gone at least 24X24, if not 30X30. It all depends on what you are going to use it for long term. LOML want me to let her daughter set up a hair salon in it, I have heat and air but no running water or sewer.
 
Bigger is better.

My shop is 12x16 and was designed for pen turning and I find it cramped. By the time you get a band saw, table saw, two lathes, Sanders, assembly table, not to mention wood storage , it gets tight quick. If you put a lawnmower in there as well...
 
I've seen people do amazing work in a shop that's 8X10. I've also seen amazing work come from a shop that's over 2600 sq ft. Both said they wished they had more room. I've never seen anyone say they had too much room. You can work out of a shop that's any size, just requires more patience, organization and thought when it's smaller. I have about 500 sq ft and I wish every day I had more space.

It's like a master closet. No matter how big you build it, you will fill it.
 
No matter what size you make it , at some point it's never going to be big enough. There's some great small shops that I really like. I think organization is the key to any size shop and sticking to it by not letting clutter start cause once it does forgetaboutit !

That said my shop is around 30 X 50 and its not big enough but I use it for other things beside woodworking . Ideally 1200 Sq foot would be a good size if woodworking was all you did in it . Less if all you did was small scale things like pens . JMO
 
I've woked out of a space 16x24 for over 25 yrs..It has been too small for 25 yrs..but I have produced funiture, turnings of various kinds and tons of stuff..I have every machine & handtool one could use in these endeavors...my advice..eat less & stay thin & pack in the tools!
 
I'm 32x40 and wish I had a bit more room. One thing you really need to consider is your table saw. You should have free space 8' in all directions from the center of the saw. That's a lot of space. You can eliminate 8" off the back end if you put the saw in front of an overhead door, but you still need 8' behind you and side to side. A jointer is similar too, if you are jointing even a 6' board requires 12.5' of length. A chop saw should have at least 9' on either side. These are tools to consider big time as you will use them a lot and don't want to be moving everything out of the way all day. Pre plan big time.
 
I agree with the others, and like Jeff said, you really need to allow enough room around each of your tools. Use the free grizzly planner and the other sites and start laying out your shop by placing the tools and equipment. I have a 30' x 40' shop and with my tools and equipment plus my wood storage and junk collections, I literally have paths to walk thru and wish I had twice the space.

I have 3 lathes (2 minis and one 1442, 2 bandsaws (1 14" with risers, 1 10" bench, one 8" jointer, one 13" planer, one 6", one 4" one 1" belt sander, table saw with 8' all around, Router table, Radial arm saw, Two miter saws, 4' x 8' assembly/work table, spindle sander, 2 scroll saws, mortiser, 4 drill presses (2 floor, 2 bench) Tormek, 5 vises plus I have two welding machines, 4' x 7' Metal work table for the welding portion, grinders, sanders, horizontal metal band saw, cutting rig, air compressors, dust collectors, cabinets and displays, desks, chairs.

Plus 3,000 bf of stickered cherry wood, 1,000 bf of stickered red oak, 1,200 bf of stickered white oak, 6,000+ pen blanks, 125 or so bowl blanks, casting pots, kits, and three large trees which have been cut and is in storage inside (sweet gum, cottonwood, mulberry) plus log sections of Pecan, Mesquite, Tallow, Elm, Willow, Cedar, Juniper, Apple, and about 1850 BF of miscellaneous wood.

LOML and I do craft shows about 18-20 weekends per year so there is almost always a lot of items in various stages. Oh we also have two 8' x 12 storage sheds crammed full.

So get the absolute biggest you can afford to get, and build it in such a way that you can easily add to later, you will probably want to.

JMHO
 
Easy, buy the trusses and add a shed style roof additions off each side of the shop walls. This way you can have the second story with the trusses and the sides are great if you want to make side"rooms". For example, you could enclose part of one side for finish work, even if you used temp walls to do so. If you ever decided to add some metal working tools, you can close off an area to keep the dust down. Separate walls between those areas will also give you more wall space to place things against. The extra sides will give you better "man doors" to enter the shop from and leave the main shop with just the garage door. Later on, or in process you could add sky lighting to the sides to give you more natural light in these side areas. There are many possibilities if you go this way, and I think that it even looks better than a box.
 
You have good advice here... go as big as you have space and money for... you'll out grow it eventually, but you'll also find use for all of the space. My current shop is a 12x24 and filled with work bench across one end and up one side, plus a free standing workbench I've hauled around for a while, two lathes, table saw, drill press (table mounted), grinder, belt sander (also table mounted), band saw, 4 storage racks, a roll around cabinet that houses a chop saw and small Ryobi bandsaw. one of the storage racks holds a planer, chainsaw, router and two scroll saws, spare parts for the dust collector system and anything else I need to hide away. The other three racks hold pen blanks, bowl blanks and other pieces of wood. Plus there's wood piled on the floor... Anything I can get up in the ceiling.. long woods etc.. hang there. The dust collector is actually in a separate closet outside the shop with the hose running through the wall with a switch on the wall to turn it on. I still could use space.
 
Thanks for the input everybody. My property recently got annexed into the city. The boundary is just beyond my backdoor but I'm sure I have to get permits, etc. A lot of what I do depends on that. I'll check out that free planner at Grizzly and Rocker though. Thanks again.
 
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