The top of the picture is south. That may seem wrong to some but that is the way I visualize it in my mind. The south end is more for storage than active production. The two rooms at the right are 12' wide but my graph paper was not that wide. The north/south divider wall is 4' high north of the strong room and gets very heavy very clear vinyl plastic up to the ceiling to keep sawdust in the east room. The clear part is mostly to ease my pesky claustrophobia. I'm using vinyl since I figure that I will shove a board through it at least once. Glass breaks.
Everything that makes sawdust is in the east room.I only have a few things that are generally unmovable. The chimney I am pretty much married to. That also kind of controls the general location of the furnace. My bench needs to sit about where it is because I do not like a bench facing a wall at all and I insist on being able to work all of the way around it. My only window in the basement is a largish one in the door to the outside through the north wall. That is my only source of natural daylight.
I have not pictured any equipment except the table saw which has about a 4' x 6' footprint. I just found its current location to feel natural. Everything in the shop is on wheels, including the table saw, or is easily portable. The bench is not on wheels but can still be moved anytime with either furniture dollies or one a couple of old skateboards I find handy for moving stuff.
The shop is not empty like it looks here, in fact it is getting pretty crowded. It has 2 other smaller tablesaws, 6 Shopsmiths, my SS double drill-press, a 6" long bed jointer, a Foley/Belsaw 5 HP planer/molder/rip-saw, a small herd of SS SPT's and a batch of other hand and power tools. Sadly none of these items have a specific home.
They just sit around mostly along the walls or next to a post. Recently the room has also filled up with various sets of shelves, cabinets etc. just waiting to be made over to suit me this winter while the wind is howling outside. I have very high hopes for the next 6 weeks or so. If it drops to 20 below zero for a week I can still work there in comfort.The area north of the stairs is becoming the home of my commercial and leather sewing machines etc. Other plans are falling into place for that west side.
The project in the title is the removal of the post marked as an "X" between the bench and the tablesaw. It has been a constant thorn in the side since I moved this shop here. I have 2 steel jack post that will initially give it any needed additional support to start with but I expect to beef up the north south beam that sits on that row of post. The beam is currently 5 - 2"x10"s laminated into a beam with spike nails as is common. I plan to add another to each side of the beam and bolt all of the way through all of them with long bolts in a staggered pattern every 16". Getting rid of that post will be a major improvement in the functionality of the shop. While I can currently pivot the tablesaw to avoid interference I won't have to and I can much more easily use the bench as out-feed support. The rest of the post are not really in the way.
- Wood shop Dec 2017.jpg (55.87 KiB) Viewed 15147 times
I'm sitting here trying to describe them in a way that makes sense and not having much luck, they are kind of hard to describe... Suffice it to say that the pilaster at the north wall will have a post under the beam 2' south of the pilaster and the post in the center of the room will have a post about 2' north of that post which will cut the span about another 4' leaving only about a 14' to 15' span. Picture the post work stations as about 3' wide walls on 2 sides of the post making an "L" and those walls being faced with 1/4" commercial pegboard. Each post already has an electrical outlet mounted to it. These stations are for tools like my Ridgid spindle/belt sander, my scroll saw etc. I hope that makes sense... 
While setting it up it managed to pinch my fingers about 4 times... 
I've gotten more accomplished in the woodshop since then than I have in a couple of years. 