Thread: How big is big enough?

I would pick up one of the many books on setting up shop. Have a look on Amazon. If you're lucky enough to be starting from a blank canvas these books are full of ideas on layout, size, electical connections, false floors etc. Fun for the entire family.

Grunt

Make your workshop as big as space and your pocket permits. You will soon fill it with tools and timber.

Having built my first workshop 5m x 2.7m, I can tell you it is insufficient for almost anything that requires any sort of machine.

Sure, you can do many things on a small bench and using power tools, and perhaps a drop saw, but forget ever to get a table saw, belt saw, thicknesser, planer etc. Of course to say the bigger, the better is an under statement and I could find justification to build one 10m x 30m . . . . To your question, if you can possibly build it 5m x 5m you will not regret it.

As to how to build it, my first one I built on a self-made slab, a standard frame out of 4"x2" recovered from my friendly local tip, and lined on the outside with discarded corrugated iron sheet from the local nursery that had demolished an old shed. The roof was almost flat, with 10% drop and I bought a double French door from the demolition yard and a window and back door for $50. What cost me more was a few sheet of lattice to cover the ugliness of the corrugate iron on the two sides that were visible.

I made it high to build a mezzanine for timber storage, up to the middle and left the other half, nice and high to handle long sticks without hitting the roof, Two sheet of polycarbonate gave me heaps of light inside. If I remember correctly, the highest side was 3.5m.

However, as I said my mistake was to make it far too narrow. Go 5x5 ... mm better 6x6 )

I built a 3.2 x 9.3 and is just about the right size for a workshop enought room in the back half for work benches and a saw bench etc and in the front section enought to park a car on one side and store wood on the second side.
But end of the day you can never have a shed to big, wanted to go bigger but council wouldn`t let me.

It is a bit difficult to know how hooked on woodworking you will get.

My garage is 7.2m x 6.0m and I consider it to be just big eneough providing the cars are left outside.

By the time you build a bench and get a few other bits of machinery you will just have a bit of room to put your projects.

Have a look at this www.ezyframe.com.au

My workshop is 4.5 x 15, and as the other guys have said, too much is never enough.

I've found that I tend to prefer working in square workshops rather than rectangular ones - not that I dislike my current rectangular one, but square shops just seem to be easier to move around in.

The best piece of advice I can give is to draw up your ideas in scale using grid paper or CAD, and draw in the machines, benches, storage etc that you have or plan to have (even years away from now). It really helps to visualise how things will look.

Cheers,


Justin.

I think the best solution would be a 6m x 6m, add a kitchen and bathroom and move the family in there.

That way you will have lots of rooms in the house, a sanding room, finishing room, table saw room, fridge room


N I R V A N A!

BIGGER IS DEFINATLY BETTER!!! I have a 9m X 7.5m (30' X 25') and do mechanical, metal work & wood work and could have TWICE the area and easily use all of it properly! Try for 4 feet in from each boundry, should be a great size and be enough room for any possible project that might come along! Honestly, I'd go as much as the pocket will allow, remembering to allow for electricity! Best of luck. Mick.

I nearly bought a house because the workshop had a toilet in it. There were no walls around it, it was just against the longest wall in the middle. Don't know why it appealled to me, but a toilet that was 6mx5m just did. Pity the rest of the house was crap.

BTW, my workshop is about 5m x 6m and it isn't big enough.

Grunt

I definitely concur with the above....BIGGER IS DEFINITELY BETTER.

My workshop is 6m x 9m and is only just sufficient. It was huge when I first built it, but with the subsequent collection of machinery, it can now be a bit of a squeeze at times.

It may just be that I'm a bit lazy, but I just hate having to set up, and then pack up machines all the time. Better to set them up and then leave them that way. Always ready to go.

Spend as much as you can afford!!!!!

Cheers

Ditto here. It is NOT possible to have a workshop that's too big

I took over the two car garage long ago - the cars have only seen the inside a couple times since we moved in, and they're not likely to see it again. It really is too small - though I manage. There's photos on my web site if you want to see how everything fits.

I think mine's around 6m x 6m. I have all the basic power tools & machines and it is workable. That size would really be my minimum.

It's almost certainly not going to hurt the value of the house to have a large workshop, and going larger doesn't actually increase the costs all that much - depending on construction of course.

Couple hints - make sure you have a decent sized door, a normal household door is not large enough for a workshop; try to have an area of concrete outside the door, a path to it even.

The Workshop section of the Fine Woodworking site is pretty good: http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworki...t_worksafe.asp

Oh, a couple more things:
Ideally build it wood framed, so it can be insualted, lined & converted later into a granny flat etc. Helps the value, and even if you give up woodworking you'll find a good use for the space.

In a perfect world, insualte it up front - you'll spend more time there if it's comfortable.

I agree with everyone here, bigger is better.

One thing I did when building my workshop is provide large door ways which allow me to really open up the shed errr workshop and make the most of it.

I have a 7x5m workshop (soon to be 10x5m) but it has a 4.5m roller door and a 3.5m sliding side door which really help out when working on larger projects or materials. If I need more space I simply use the driveway.


Joe

Mine started @ 40' x 20', then I doubled that so she is 40' x 40' and then I built a 40' x 22' "carport" across the front..... I wish it was bigger!

As everyone says big is never big enough.

I've had the use of 5 workshops
First was my dads which was 8x4 it was crammed to that rafters with gear and eventually became impossible to use we had to construct everything outside.

I then built my first, we had very little garden space and the council were no coperative I managed only 3x5, I used this for storage and a workbench only. I built a nice large lean to though (didn't tell the council) and did every thing there.

We then moved and I got a 5x5 shed, again too small, to the point were I stopped woodworking for the 5 years we lived there.

Then we moved to an acreage, (now were talking) I built a 6x12 and at the start it had heaps of space, but as usual I filled the space to the point were it was getting hard to move around.

We then moved to another acreage (current one) and I built a 9x18 it is currently big enough (I filled a 10 cubic metre skip with rubbish from the previous one) I'm going to try and make this one last as much larger and it will be bigger than the house. been in there for 3 months and so far so good

If you get the bug and have the $$ this hobby is very hard to control.

Cheers


Dave