Thread: No Shed... creative thinking required

Good Morning astrid

The "workshop" at my previous place was an old outside brick dunny, about 1 x 2 metres! I put shelves on one wall, stored ladders and planks behind the door, hung things on the other wall and stood the Triton on end so I could open the door. Not a lot of waste space!

Small jobs I did on the back verandah. Big jobs elsewhere. My wife is an academic so big jobs usually meant building even more bookshelves. The biggest job was totally lining her study with floor to ceiling bookshelves - a room about 15 x 13 feet with 10 ft ceilings. Bought a pile of rough sawn celery top pine - 200x40, 250x40 and 300x40 - and cut it, thicknessed it, edge routed it, sanded it, cut sliding dovetails and danish oiled it all in her study. At one stage there was about 25 - 30 mm shavings and sawdust on the carpet. When all work finished but prior to assembly and oiling I Just swept and vacuumed that floor. Spotless, then SWMBO noted that "the walls are dusty" so I vacuumed the ceiling and the walls and got another vacuum bag of dust. It amazed us as to how effective the vacuum was at getting sawdust out of the carpet. The biggest difficulty was remembering always to put a "draft stopper sausage" along the foot of the door to stop dust escaping into the hall, and masking tape over the keyhole..

Virtually every room and the rather long hall finished up with bookshelves, all built where required. Always had to empty that room before working or making dust. Plastic shrouds looked effective but airborn dust always outsmarted them!

Later we moved to a house with more wall space.




Fair Winds

Graeme

Thank you Graeme,
It's nice to know others struggle with adversity
So you used the old dunny mainly to store stuff and worked elsewhere. Hmmm maybe I'll build a structure with one side open to work under that doubles as a shaded space on the patio and store tools in the laundry.
My first project will be to pull apart one of those huge old school cupboards made of solid kaurie slabs to build new kitchen bench tops.
Your reply is inspiring, thank you.

Mel

Hi Mel,

When I was renting an apartment (very old and crappy), I converted one of the bedrooms into the workshop I posted here somewhere the table and bed/bedside tables that I made there. No big machinery, but still good for hand tools and triton workcentre.

I guess small shed outside your house is not an option?

Good luck!

ilya

For quite some years my shed was a simple gardenshed place dunder the front verandah of the rental house I was in.
the garden shed was 3x3 and had a bench up one side, an old door bolted across the end wall,a nd shelves on the other wall - the wall with the door was used for acess and storage.
The bench had: drill press, lathe, bench grinder, small work area
the shelves were tools and materials
the door was a "peg board" for tools I used regularly, and I I had a rolling tool chest, and a couple of crates on the floor in front of it.

When you add all that up I had a lot in there, but other than basic grinding or small fitting work, I mainly used the shed to store the tools - my main work area was under the patio near the door ofthe shed. - woodwork near the shed door, the hot works in the carport. I used a portable bench for some work, and had my woodwork bench stored under the patio, but outside the shed - nothing on it to steal because I packed it all up each night.

it wasn't ideal, but when I left the rental, there was no marks for the landlord to complain about.

HTH,
Des

most of the work I will be doing is fixing all my furniture I never got around to when I did it for a living.
so if I have somewhere under cover to "glue up" "screw up" and somewhere to store clamps and stuff I guess I will manage.
The bad word is "tidy up after"

Go the dining room.

The kitchen bench makes a good work bench and is great for glue up. If you use silicon inside make sure you have appropriate thinners and no one is around to catch you .... So I'm told.

Some glues don't seem to want to come of laminate but I know nothing about that either.

After my dirt floor shed flooded I moved into the lounge / sleep out. Probably a good 30m2. It was carpeted so I got a couple of bails of sawdust and raked a 2" cover over the floor. That worked well. When the area was reclaimed it cleaned up well.

Oh I forgot. There was a temporary placement under a back 'veranda'. It was about 2.7 x 1.8 and had a leaking roof and 2 open sides. It was not good for a lathe.

Next after the lounge was a spare bedroom about 3.6 x 3.6. One day I had a catch using my 12" DeWalt and later found someone had 'thrown' something through the top window sash. Peculiar as the glass was on the outside. It would seem someone broke it from the inside .

With 2 kids under 5 and the 20 ur old moving back home I got kicked out of the bedroom and now on the front veranda. It is about 8' by the width of the house but not quite what I had in mind.

Now I am building a temporary structure on the back of the house about 2.7 x 5.4. Eventually I need to rebuild the shed that flooded.


Dave

The Turning Cowboy

Get rid of her indoors, swap the double bed for single, should be plenty of space left on the other side of the room, problem solved.

Originally Posted by DaveTTC

Go the dining room.

The kitchen bench makes a good work bench and is great for glue up. If you use silicon inside make sure you have appropriate thinners and no one is around to catch you .... So I'm told.

Some glues don't seem to want to come of laminate but I know nothing about that either.

After my dirt floor shed flooded I moved into the lounge / sleep out. Probably a good 30m2. It was carpeted so I got a couple of bails of sawdust and raked a 2" cover over the floor. That worked well. When the area was reclaimed it cleaned up well.

Oh I forgot. There was a temporary placement under a back 'veranda'. It was about 2.7 x 1.8 and had a leaking roof and 2 open sides. It was not good for a lathe.

Next after the lounge was a spare bedroom about 3.6 x 3.6. One day I had a catch using my 12" DeWalt and later found someone had 'thrown' something through the top window sash. Peculiar as the glass was on the outside. It would seem someone broke it from the inside .

With 2 kids under 5 and the 20 ur old moving back home I got kicked out of the bedroom and now on the front veranda. It is about 8' by the width of the house but not quite what I had in mind.

Now I am building a temporary structure on the back of the house about 2.7 x 5.4. Eventually I need to rebuild the shed that flooded.


Dave

The Turning Cowboy

I could always convince my kids that sleeping in the smallest room reduces the need to clean up the floor

Originally Posted by tdrumnut

Get rid of her indoors, swap the double bed for single, should be plenty of space left on the other side of the room, problem solved.

Ahem.. I am the Her Indoors

Originally Posted by astrid

Ahem.. I am the Her Indoors

So the stupid question

Are you a woman?


Dave

The Turning Cowboy

Double post


Dave

The Turning Cowboy

Originally Posted by astrid

Ahem.. I am the Her Indoors

Simple then, get rid of Him indoors and carry on.

Do you have room for a small garage? I'm in a rental place and have a 6X4m garage that I picked up for $300 sitting on the ground with carpet for the floor. Still running out of room though. I once had a small caravan as a workshop.
Kryn

Nope, no garage.

I have a sort of mad idea about tarting up my old school workbench (you know the heavy as lead things with a vice on both sides?) putting it in the dining area adjoining the kitchen and laundry, using it as a conservatory with plants and things mostly and using the workbench as a workbench for gluing up and less messy when I need one.
I wouldn't do any sanding in there, just use it for "clean" work.
Then I can put another workbench over the washing machine and sink (front loader) store my tools in the laundry and do stripping and sanding work outside.