Your Shop Size?

[fjimp]

I like this discussion. Prior to our move I had almost 400 square feet. Now under 275 Square Feet. However if I manage to pull off my building project plan I will have over 500 square feet. My wife will get the current shop for her quilting operation and the size of the kitchen and dining room will nearly triple. Plus we will use the current quilting room for exercise equipment. Should anyone be wondering downsizing is not all it is claimed to be. fjimp

[fiatben]

I put my shop down as about 200 s.f. This is probably a generous guess of the space I can actually use in my “shop.” The shop is actually an old tin barn that is about 20 x 40’. The building started its life on a concrete pad that sloped toward the center to a run-off channel as the building was used as a fish hatchery. Later it was pulled off the pad and set on the ground and spent years as a hay barn. When the family no longer ran cattle, it gradually became storage for junk no one wanted to bother to throw away.

About 5 years ago I talked my parents into letting me use it to pursue my hobby of fixing up old Fiat Spiders and my wife supported my bad habits by allowing me to pour a concrete floor. It sure looked like a lot of room when it was empty with fresh concrete and a patched up roof.

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Then I moved in! I was given a bunch of commercial furniture, metal bases with 1-1/4 MDF laminated tops, desks, credenzas and cabinets. (One of the desk, at 3’ x 6’ with drawers is my main worktable/workbench.) The cool thing was they were all the same height. These run along a couple of walls. The stuff included some equally heavy shelves that hang on those slotted racks. Then a friend had a truckload of pegboard from a store that was remodeling. The barn was laid out to work on cars, in theory. The woodworking is a recent addition. Currently the building holds a large accumulation of car parts, including hoods, doors, seats, tops, dashes, motors, trannys, etc. It also holds a large chunk of my personal stuff (after the divorce). One side also is home to my 1969 Fiat 124 Spider that is 98% original and waiting for me to restore back to driveable.

I took the work area for small repairs to car stuff and turned that into my woodshop. It is about 10 x14’ at most, but with no cars in the middle area to work on, I have some extra. That’s why I checked off 200 SF. In reality, I probably work in about 100 SF max, but I have dreams of being better organized some day. Right now the goal is to get genuine power to the building, maybe within the next few weeks. I’m excited about that!

[nuhobby]

Love It, fiatben!
That picture takes me back to a high-school buddy that ran a red Fiat very hard. We had a ton of fun in that thing.

[robinson46176]

Here is a picture showing my current disaster of a wood shop (light yellow on left) which I originally put up for a store operation in 1976. It is 24'X48' + a 7'X24' add-on across part of the back. The "New" new wood shop is the darker yellow part on the right. It is 24'X45' (put up as our house in 1976). They are connected by a hall/ramp between them just out of sight. When we moved the store to the public square in town we took over the store building as a huge family room.
The house sits higher than the store building. The house is stored full of "stuff" and we are trying to get it migrated down to the current wood shop and the wood shop migrated up to the former house. Not as easy as it might sound. Lots of slow sorting... I finally told my wife that the stuff was going to have to just get moved now and be sorted later. The old store/current wood shop will be used for a huge yard/garage sale this summer or fall before becoming a 4 stall horse stable.
Most of the interior walls in the house/shop will be opened up with 8' and 10' openings with full headers so most of it will be like one big room. I will lose the ability to walk out at ground level for a while but I will raise the grade at the back (large flat yard) so that I will not have any steps there. I intend to set one of those metal portable two car carports at the back door so I can work there on something extra large (like building another gypsy wagon).
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[excolprof]

Have a separate 600 sq. ft. exclusive shop space. Heated, air conditioned, 9 foot ceilings, recessed lights, etc.

Okay for now.

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[brick1]

[quote="ryanbp01"]I figured my shop is 180 square feet. However if I need the larger space all I have to do is wheel the SS out into the garage portion. The casters are the best piece of auxiliary equipment for the Shopsmith! My garage was supposed to be a 3BR ranch but the previous owner had never gotten beyond roofing it. It affords me room to get 2 cars inside plus the shop area, not to mention a 12x13 train room. My wife wouldn't let me plumb it]

i hear ya! my oldest kid and i got the electric trenched in to both the shop and new storage shed. she said she'd never see me again....i invited her to learn the lathe process, and the other seven functions, and she said she would try it.........but then she says she will get on the back of the Ultra Classic again...........??? whatever she wants to do is fine with me. she's put up my sorry butt for 43 years, so i owe her a bunch!!!!

[beeg]

Time to bring this forward again.

[thetorch]

Bought a S.S. in 1970 - since then have moved 5 times, have had, one car gar. , two car gar. , 28` X 34`insulated, finished and heated [ in floor & over head stor] a one car and NOW1/2 of a one car. Two cars sit out all the time.
Bought a second SS for the bigger shop, sold the bigger shop and the SS in `98. Now I need material,storage and a workbench/assy table.
It is hard to afford heat for a hobby shop [ not making money] that has items that can`t freeze, and 5 mo of the year it is that cold.
The torch

[oldc6]

one more test on picture uploads before i forget how.

[JPG]

one more test on picture uploads before i forget how.

If that was the 'test', it didn't make it!;) Yet!