# Am I the only one without a workshop?



## SE18 (Apr 6, 2009)

Whenever I do a project, I trot my router and other projects from a large closet and hallway to the patio in the backyard. I use a dolly for the table saw.

I sometimes envy a workshop dedicated to machines and projects, but I just don't have the room.

Just wondering if I'm the only one.

Someday when I'm rich I hope to move to a larger property with a workshop, or else I'll build one.


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## curiousgeorge (Nov 6, 2006)

Do you have a garage? That's where my shop is located. The cars live outside.


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## xplorx4 (Dec 1, 2008)

David you are the kind of woodworker I admire most, against the odds and with difficulty you still pursue the hobby. I may have a shop and all but you swim up river to get it done. I would imagine that what you produce out of your closet shop would show up anything I could produce out of my shop!!!

So to you and anyone on here that works through the same handicap I say "Hats of to you and charge on".


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## RustyW (Dec 28, 2005)

David, I have a single car garage that all my stuff fits in. But there's no room to work in there. I have to roll everything out on the driveway.


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## AxlMyk (Jun 13, 2006)

I'm aware of one fellow that uses his bathroom. The tub is the sawdust catcher. I saw a picture of it someplace. He had his chop saw setup so the sawdust went out the back, and into the tub.


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## adauria (Jul 23, 2009)

I keep both cars in the garage and all tools out of the way to the sides. When I work, both cars leave the garage (temporarily) and I pull the tools out. Sometimes only 1 car goes back in if the piece I am working on won't fit out of the way. I understand your situation. I am quite the amateur and only a beginner. I'm not ready to dedicate too much space just yet.

-Andrew


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## drasbell (Feb 6, 2009)

I know exactly what you mean. When I first started woodworking I lived in Seattle Wash and was sharing a 3 bedroom apt on the 3rd floor with my wife her mom, brother and her sister, and 6 cats. yes cats! all of my woodworking tools were in the dining room disguised as other things the kitchen table was actually my table saw with a 1/2 sheet of plywood on top with a tablecloth on it the end table lamp was actually my drill press and yes the light was used as a table lamp and many more things I was just asked not to do wood working when x files was on. so I know just how you feel, great post and thanks for bringing up the memories.


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## jw2170 (Jan 24, 2008)

SE18 said:


> Whenever I do a project, I trot my router and other projects from a large closet and hallway to the patio in the backyard. I use a dolly for the table saw.
> 
> I sometimes envy a workshop dedicated to machines and projects, but I just don't have the room.
> 
> ...


No you are not the only one. I have to work out in the back yard and pull all my tools out of my garden shed...

Ah, to have a garage....heaven...

James


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## Gap_308 (May 2, 2009)

*more space*

Even when you get more space, you still look for more. I too have used the back patio for sanding so the dust wouldn't float in the garage. It's a two car garage that only fits one anyway. All my tools have to be rolled to the sides or stuffed in a shelf somewhere. No your not the only one. Look in the background in these pics.........no laughing.









my first cabinet doors ever.











aquarium stand turned outfeed table.


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## xplorx4 (Dec 1, 2008)

Gap_308 said:


> Even when you get more space, you still look for more. I too have used the back patio for sanding so the dust wouldn't float in the garage. It's a two car garage that only fits one anyway. All my tools have to be rolled to the sides or stuffed in a shelf somewhere. No your not the only one. Look in the background in these pics.........no laughing.


Nice looking doors at least they look like doors, The out feed table is outstanding, I have a brother in law that keeps both cars in the garage and when he work, he backs them out and does his woodworking, he is in the Houston Tx area, south of Houston in Friendswood, has an A/C unit in the garage which is nice and turns out some above average work. I will get around to posting some of his work when I get the pics in a more manageable size.


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## SE18 (Apr 6, 2009)

Misery loves company. Ah, I feel MUCH better knowing there are others out there who don't have those fancy shops (yes, jealousy) but yet keep charging anyway!

Now I'm motivated!

Semper Fi

Dave V.


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## Ian L (Jun 11, 2009)

*Without a Workshop*



This is my very first posting. I hope I'm doing it correctly. Although I have a double garage which has to accommodate 2 cars I have room for a wide shelf which I use for marking out etc. I have a B&D Workmate which I've had for about 50 years and I've adapted my table saw, mitre saw, router table, belt/disc sander and metal cutoff saw to all work off this workmate. I suggest you get yourself a workmate which will solve pretty well all your problems.


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## DerekO (Jan 20, 2010)

The closest I have come to a shop is this winter when I have been using part of the basement that is just barely big enough for the table saw, dust collector, a rolling shelf cart that I put a piece of plywood on for a bench and me. The rolling shelf cart is constantly being moved around so that the doors behind me can be used or so that my Wife can get into the freezer or the fridge.

I am used to having everything in the garage and having to haul it all out or rearrange the garage to do anything. And this was before I started attempting to actually make things out of wood. It was to just simply work on anything that I had to go through it all. I used to have the rolling shelf cart out there plus a workmate like thing from menards, but often would end up using the tailgate of the pickup to lay things out and work on them. 

Now that weather is warming up I am hoping to get some of the stuff that is in the way inside out into the garage so I can continue to do the wood working inside. Nicer to be in conditioned air (hot or cold) plus I can work later at night as the sound from the basement doesn't carry around the neighborhood like the sound of doing things in the garage does.


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## istracpsboss (Sep 14, 2008)

No, you are not alone. I'm currently renting a ground floor apartment until I build my house and workshops. My metalworking stuff is still in store and my woodworking stuff has to be pulled out on to the patio to work with. My Triton 2000 is on wheels, my sliding mitre saw is on a stand with outfeed rollers, my Triton router table pulls outside and everything else is on four Workmate clones including the Woodrat. The living room is a warehouse and totally unusable for its intended purpose !

Cheers

Peter


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## MarcoBernardini (Jan 26, 2010)

I placed my drill press on a wheel cart just because I don't have (yet) a permanent working space, so I must follow the furniture migration.


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## Knothead47 (Feb 10, 2010)

I use a one car garage in the basement. I'm trying to figure out how to re-arrange everything so one side will be shop and the other side for all the other stuff we have accumulated in 37-1/2 years. I did go to Lowe's last night and price 2X2's and cheap OSB to build a divider wall to keep the sawdust confined. Will use the Shop Vac and a box fan with a furnace filter for my DC. I keep the porch light on so they can find my house to give me the $10 million PCH check. So far, they keep getting lost!
As for cars, we have never had a car in a garage due to tools, kid's toys, etc. Closest thing was a carport in our home in Kentucky.


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## DerekO (Jan 20, 2010)

We haven't used a garage since she bought Her last new car. Went from a 1996 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cierra with 176,000+ miles to a 1996 Ford Crown Victoria with 186,000+ miles with the police interceptor engine.  The other vehicle is a 2003 Dodge Ram Quad Cab.

We used to fit the olds, even did two 1985 Oldsmobile Delta 88's for a while. It used to be one of those and an 1956 Lincoln Premiere in the garage with enough room to open all 4 doors on the olds and the driver's door on the lincoln. Couldn't do the passenger side as we would slide it over till it almost touched the wall to prevent any chances of the door of the olds hitting it.

Now it has turned into almost total storage with 4 6' high x'4 long steel shelves on casters, a full size desk, 2 huge file cabinets, an old computer desk with hutch and some other shelf on the one side. The other side is all cabinets or drawers of various sorts until the last 8 feet which is built in shelving...still used to park the cars with it there as it wasn't enough to bother opening the door, but you did have to go around the car to come in through the garage entry.

Since then added a golf cart, been 1 to 3 mobility scooters in there at a time, the old table saw which used to be stored in the shed and only brought out when needed. With all of this stuff, plus take away the 4 feet or so at the back on 1 side for the steps and a 19.5'x 24' garage gets rather small in no time at all. If we could just convince some one to part with 90% of what is in the non-book storage boxes it would be a lot better.

The desk does get used for a side project she has of selling hand dyed linen or something and selling older comic books when she has found a batch worth taking a chance on for resale. Been over a year since any sold, but did get a batch last fall that needs sorting and pics taken so they can be sold.


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## 3efingers (Dec 21, 2006)

When I first started I had lots of space (read outdoors) and few tools, now many years later I have lots of tools and somehow my shop has shrunk so by this weekend I hope we'll break ground on an addition and give me a total of 300 sq. feet. My wife is getting me the addition for my retirement.


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## BigJimAK (Mar 13, 2009)

Congratulations, Tom... on the shop *and* retirement!!


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## 3efingers (Dec 21, 2006)

Thanks Jim, I'm also getting permanent elec. to the shop so I will not have to fight with extension cords again.....


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## sofasurfer (May 30, 2009)

I have a 3 car garage. The cars sleep in the driveway. The garage is ful to the brim with tote-homes. There is barely enough room for T saw, planer, B saw, M saw and shop vac. I am in the process of putting everything on rollers for toten to the driveway. Current project is a bench with retractable wheels.


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## pimmaj (Mar 16, 2010)

No, you are not totally alone... I have no garage, no shop, and live in an 850 sq/ft house- with kids!
Tony


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## pemdas86 (Nov 21, 2008)

I decided last year that I'm going to stop waiting until I get a bigger and better house to have a workshop. My resolution was that in the summer months I would set up "shop" in the 1 car basement garage and leave all my tools setup and ready to go. Then in the winter, they all get put away and brought inside so we can have car storage and snowthrower, etc. Besides, for me anyway, the winter months are a pain with the holidays and unpredicatable weather, and not to mention the garage is uninsulated and not heated. So it works out. Actually, I'm getting ready to get started for the season. Just today I finsihed running 2 new 20 amp circuits from the panel to the garage ....just for me and the tools.....ha! I'll have 2 duplexes every 8 feet or so. Then I'm good to go. So no, I don't really have a shop, but I found a way to make do with what I have. Good luck.


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## BigJimAK (Mar 13, 2009)

sofasurfer said:


> I have a 3 car garage. The cars sleep in the driveway. The garage is ful to the brim with tote-homes. There is barely enough room for T saw, planer, B saw, M saw and shop vac. I am in the process of putting everything on rollers for toten to the driveway. Current project is a bench with retractable wheels.


Wheels is a great solution Daryl.. I use them extensively. The other thing I did last spring was to tell my wife that "In 2 weeks I want to start cleaning out the garage, giving away or selling a lot of stuff. If you would like to join in, you are welcome and then would have input on what stays and what goes. If you do not want to participate, you'll need to trust my judgement. I'll try to keep the things of value and that you'd like to keep, but my mission is to dispose of 70% of the volume that is there, put 20% in the outside storage shed, 8% in the house, and store a few items in the garage." I gently mention this every 3 nights or so, hoping she'd decide to join me. She didn't so I drafted my son for assistance. A couple of weekends later there was lots of room in the shop, the storage shed was full, we had trashed a lot and given to "Good Will". Because the storage shed is packed so tightly and we were working so quickly, I'm not positive about a lot of the stuff that went out there. When she asks about a certain item (if I can't remember) I honestly tell her I'm not positive but I *think* it's in the shed. So far, it's worked like a charm.

If you have a stuffed garage and would like the space back, consider this approach. If a one-time expenditure of a couple hundred bucks to set up a metal or (Rubbermaid) plastic shed out back gives you the garage back as a shop, is it worth it? Spring time is when people move and they often show up on Craigslist.. at least around here!!


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## gav (Oct 12, 2009)

I have no garage, no workshop, no table saw even.
I have about 3m2 in a overly cluttered communal basement where I have enough space to make chopsticks !(no kidding, last winter i resigned myself to making chopsticks)
Now the weather is getting better I have to drag my stuff up some stairs out onto a decent sized terrace that only I use. The neighbors aren't fond of the noise and dust I create though. Probably why they're trying to sell up.:haha:


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## Cochese (Jan 12, 2010)

144sqft shed, here. It's getting better, though. Not much room for big tools, no TS, DP or the like. Just two work tables and a router table, and that will have to come outside when I want to use it.

Quarter of the shed is boxes and whatnot.


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## MikeMa (Jul 27, 2006)

I saw a woodworking magazine a few years back that had a small workshop in a 12x12 shed, complete with a large table saw and biesmeyer fence. I will try to see if I can dig it up this weekend.


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## bobj3 (Jan 17, 2006)

Like they say it's not the size of the tool it's what you can do with it..

I recall talking to a old wood worker and he used a old 6" table saw,he projects all look great  I was amazed what he did with just a little table saw and that's just about all. his work shop was on his back porch about a 3' x 6' room..and a saw horse or two..

===


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## istracpsboss (Sep 14, 2008)

I was amazed by this thread. I thought all USians had huge houses and workshops !

So much for American TV programmes !

Cheers

Peter


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## 3efingers (Dec 21, 2006)

Peter, Hollywood lies to everyone !


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## bobj3 (Jan 17, 2006)

Hi Peter

Have you seen the move called 
grapes of wrath
at one time it was like that for MANY  it took a world war to pull us out of the hole so to speak..but for mamy they are still in the hole..for many are still making minimum wage...and many are on welfare...and the gap is getting bigger all the time.

The Grapes of Wrath - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

=======



istracpsboss said:


> I was amazed by this thread. I thought all USians had huge houses and workshops !
> 
> So much for American TV programmes !
> 
> ...


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## rain (Dec 29, 2009)

An 11 x 15 foot room in the basement that my wife dubbed, 'the cave', and this
is the partial inventory: concrete mixer (large model), floor model drill press,
metal cutting power hacksaw, 350 pound wire-feed welder, 12 inch slider,
General cabinet saw, long-bed jointer, floor model router table, thickness planer,
every portable power tool known to man, tool boxes and chests, mechanical
tools, three running computers and a desk (at least I think it's a desk under all
my indispensable stuff). I'm typing this in there now.
If I had to push a thumb tack into the wall in here, it would require major consideration and effort. Woodworking is done in rooms being lived in or else
outside when our Pacific Northwest monsoons aren't blossoming. Yeah, it's
rotten to work this way, but the world is full of excuses for being unable to
do things, and I don't want to belong to that mindset. Keep at it!


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## DerekO (Jan 20, 2010)

bobj3 said:


> Hi Peter
> 
> Have you seen the move called
> grapes of wrath
> ...


Some of us crawl out every once in a while only to be kicked back down. Just as recently as the 70's and into the mid 80's , most of the mothers in the neighborhood I grew up were either stay at homes or at most took care of some other kids for the moms that worked.

In the neighborhood I am now, except for retired or disabled people, both people of a couple work, with a few of them having at least one person with a second job. We have two empty houses, one has been for sale since October, the other went for sale some time this winter. The one was a rental, the other had to move to a different state to get a job. The twin home next to us sold for under half of it's estate appraisal 7 years ago and it is on a cul-de-sac with a huge yard and 22'x30' workshop/garage building (can't technically be a garage other than for storage of seldom driven vehicles and no drive way to it is allowed).

The people who moved for a job have their house for sale at well less than what is owned for it, has a huge garage and hasn't sold yet though it has been marketed since November and I have seen a lot of people come look at it. The insides are a bit rough, but nothing new carpet or hardwood floors wouldn't fix up as the rest of it had been slowly upgraded to nice oak doors and trim and the bathroom recently remodeled. Even has solar heat for the house and a separate air conditioner/furnace system for the garage.


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## mi77915 (Aug 15, 2009)

I only have a 12 x 12 shed that I use a workshop. It is not heated, so I only work on projects in Spring through Fall. Most on my work is done outside in my driveway (cutting large pieces), all other work is done inside my "small" shop. 

Tom


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## istracpsboss (Sep 14, 2008)

bobj3 said:


> Hi Peter
> 
> Have you seen the move called
> grapes of wrath
> ...


hi Bob

I've read Steinbeck's novel. I thought it was all about the 30's and that things were very different now.

Cheers

Peter


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## bobj3 (Jan 17, 2006)

Hi Peter

You would think so but in the land of plenty so many don't have that much, if you go down South and in the big cities you will still see many that don't have squat..very sad.

========


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## DerekO (Jan 20, 2010)

istracpsboss said:


> hi Bob
> 
> I've read Steinbeck's novel. I thought it was all about the 30's and that things were very different now.
> 
> Peter


We just went through, and some are still going through the worst depression/recession since then. No drought and farming habits causing a dust bowl this time around though. Plus the banks all got bailed out by the govt.

Just thinking of it all got me so upset I realized I had better stop my post where it was up there.

My wife was out of work for 6 months because of the causes leading up to it all and just went to full time work this January, 1.5 years later. She had been an account for a company that did flooring installation for builders and high end housing...mainly high end housing even when it was for builders, with some govt projects and some large office buildings. When things started to really slow down there I knew something was going to happen, just not that things would get so low or that the govt would spend all the money on the banks...but then with who knows how many lobbyist per legislator putting the squeeze on them, what else was supposed to happen.

Nice time to move up in housing if you didn't lose your money in the stock market or had to spend it to live on while unemployed.

Ok, I posted a little bit more, but tried to keep my bias from completely coming out.


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## silver8ack (Mar 30, 2010)

I dont have a workshop.

I built a 2x4 portable workbench top that rests on saw horses, and I work in my driveway so all my neighbors can watch lol


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## DerekO (Jan 20, 2010)

I used to take the workmate like table out into the yard and do stuff. The driveway wasn't shaded and the yard was.  I had an almost flat section of the yard to work in, would drive back and forth carrying my various needed tools on my mobility scooter, especially the needed leaf blower  for blowing all of the dust off of me when done.

Too bad that about 90% of the things I made out there either are no longer with us or were failed projects. The router table and fence made out of mdf with the plate being hardboard lasted the longest, but got tired of moving it from place to place last summer with the 4 extra long bolts in it that often ended up having someone's leg run into them. So for a bit it ended up as a partially solid surface in the rock between the yard and patio so I could drive the scooter without sinking and then last fall it made it into the garbage can. Had no idea at the time I was going to be getting back into attempting woodworking again this winter. The main reason it ended up as being used as a mdf bridge was it got forgotten behind the shed door during a shed cleaning and it rained that not. Mdf doesn't do too well after it has been rained on.

The workmate like table needs one side replaced because of it not being brought inside one night too. I keep forgetting to do it as each time I go to use it I need the table now to get something done that I don't want to take the time to replace that side. I just realized that the left over melamine mdf board from the new version of the router table will make a perfect replacement for it as I was writing this. Will just need to remember it and remember to seal the sides of it and the one good mdf board left on it.


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## allthunbs (Jun 22, 2008)

SE18 said:


> Just wondering if I'm the only one.


You're lucky. We moved into a brand new apartment building some years ago and I turned the spare bedroom into my shop. Talk about dust. Every time I opened the door, the apartment got covered in dust. I don't know how I managed to stay married after that one.


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## DerekO (Jan 20, 2010)

allthunbs said:


> You're lucky. We moved into a brand new apartment building some years ago and I turned the spare bedroom into my shop. Talk about dust. Every time I opened the door, the apartment got covered in dust. I don't know how I managed to stay married after that one.



I would think that your wife would want you to partition off the room like they do for asbestos or mold abatement, with the multiple plastic layers before you get in and out and with a clean room in between to change clothes 

I know my mother would have done that if dad ever set up a shop inside. She was bad enough about it if we were just cutting up firewood outside, let alone making chips fly in the house.


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## allthunbs (Jun 22, 2008)

DerekO said:


> I would think that your wife would want you to partition off the room like they do for asbestos or mold abatement, with the multiple plastic layers before you get in and out and with a clean room in between to change clothes
> 
> I know my mother would have done that if dad ever set up a shop inside. She was bad enough about it if we were just cutting up firewood outside, let alone making chips fly in the house.


That was before we "discovered" PBS in the 'States and she had not seen decontamination rooms. Good thing too. The shop was so small it would have been the decontamination room.


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