How to Make the Most of your Garage Workspace
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As I have said in first steps to a garage workshop conversion, the first thing to do is to measure your dimensions. This is very important when planning to workin a small space such as a garage.
Then layout your dimensions to scale on paper or in Excel or however you draft. [You do know how to draft right, you are a woodworker aren't you? ;)] Put in not only the dimensions, but also where the doors and windows are. You'll want to think about wall storage in this phase as well.
After you have your dimensions on paper, the next thing to do is to compile a list of all your tools that take up floor space. If you have all the tools already, great, otherwise you will need to estimate the dimensions of the tools. Draw out the dimensions of the tools (on another piece of paper) using the same scale as the floor layout, such as the planer, jointer, tablesaw, etc, and your workbench. Now cut out these paper represenations. Now you can easily place and move around these tools on the floor layout.
Remember to think about infeed and outfeed when positioning your tools. It is also a good idea to think about where your wood will be stored. Try to get the shortest distance from the rough stock to your first tool, which maybe a chopsaw on your workbench for example.
The next big thing to do is to think about storage, both wood storage and tool storage. Put together a list of all the tools you have that do not take up floor space, the ones that go on your workbench for example, your clamps, jigs, etc.
Think about which tools you will be able to hang on the wall, like your clamps, and which items will be stored under your workbench.
Other important space planning considereations might be where will the garbage and keepable scraps go? What kind of dust collection will you have, and how much space does that take up?
You'll definately want to build a wall storage rack for your wood. This is the best option when you have limited floor space.
It does take alot of planning and there are lots of tings to consider. It might seem childish to start playing around with cut-outs, or it might seem tedious to take so much time planning this garage workshop. Believe me, it is worth all the time it takes.
It might take a few hours to plan out your garage workshop efficiently. This will pale in comparison to the amount of time that you will waste moving stuff around or looking for tools throughout the years because things are always in the way, or you can never find that tool you need.
If you need some ideas for layouts, here is another article with some garage layout plans.
