Re-purposing Your Garage

There are a lot of different things you can do with your garage if you’ve decided not to use it to store your car. These projects are especially interesting to those who don’t own a car—why let your garage space go to waste? You can transform it into a number of different areas: a spare room, a workshop, an in-home spa, a gym, an office, or anything else. If you do a lot of woodworking, you could turn your garage into a cool woodworking studio, especially if it’s the size of a standard two car garage. You’d have plenty of space for your saws, workbench, and everything else.

First StepsOnce you’ve decided to begin transforming your garage into a woodworking shop, the first thing you’ll want to do is look at what space you’re working with. The size of a two car garage will give you a good amount of space, but if you’re dealing with a single car garage, you may have to make some tough calls about what you can have in your new shop.

Once you’ve measured the area, you can create a plan. Doing this first means you won’t spend a lot of time moving stuff around later. You may fine-tune the layout as you move things in, but by and large, you’ll know where your workbench, saws, and other large items are going to go.

This is also a good time to decide what kind of storage you’ll have, if you need pegboard or gridwall to hang tools, etc.

Finally, think about utilities. If your garage is detached, you may need to look into having electricity ran to it. Attached or detached, you may need to look into heating/air conditioning or adding insulation to the garage.

Let’s look a little more about your plan. Besides measuring your workspace, you also need to measure your equipment and make a list of all your tools. Many people pull out graph paper and make a blueprint. Mark off the doors and windows, then start looking at where you’ll want wall storage. If you have a lot of tools that hang, you’ll want a good amount of space for them.

Then start planning out where you’ll put your large tools. Your workbench, table saw, planer, jointer, and any other major tool is going to need space, plus you have to keep in mind that you’ll need to be able to walk around all of these devices. Remember that they’ll need power, too, so don’t place them too far away from outlets unless you’re going to run a lot of extension cords.

A few other things to remember: you’ll want a space for a chair, you’ll need an area to store wood, and you will probably want a space for storing your finished or in-progress projects.

One thing to think about when you’re planning out your shop is the flow of your projects. The typical garage size is big enough for a woodworking shop as long as you lay it out logically. Think about what tools you’ll use first. These tools should be nearest to the lumber pile. Work out what tools you’ll need for each part of a typical project, and arrange them so that you go from one to the other without moving back and forth across the garage. Of course, space restrictions may interfere with this plan a bit, but all in all, it should be workable.

If you really want to see what your shop layout will look like, you can use one of several different computer programs to create blueprints of the room, or you can create a scale model using a piece of graph paper and small to-scale cut-outs of each of your large tools.

What if the traditional garage size just isn’t enough for all of your tools and equipment? Well, then you have to make a choice—which ones do you need the most? What tools let you do the most things? Here are a few of the items you may have:

Table saw
Jigsaw
Router
Jointer
Drill Press
Sander

The table saw is the largest of these items, and many woodworkers would say it’s a necessity. However, all it really does it make straight cuts. You can do that with some of the other, smaller saws, so it can go if you really need the space.

You’ll probably need the router and the jointer, even though the router will need its own table. A good sander is also needed, although you can use an electric hand sander instead of a large table sander. You can also look at ways of minimizing your workbench, such as using one with fold out extensions instead of one large bench. This way, you can have the added space when needed but gain that space back when you don’t.

Paul Revere & the Raiders are an American rock band that saw mainstream success beginning in the late 1960s. Originally founded in Boise, Idaho, organist Paul Revere Dick met singer Mark Lindsay while buying hamburger buns at a local bakery. Originally named the Downbeats, the band practiced in garages while Lindsay earned extra cash pumping gas and Revere was working to avoid drafted military service.

Over the years, Paul Revere and the Raiders went through numerous band member changes, but original members included bassist Mike “Doc” Holliday and guitarist Drake Levin. Their hits included “Hungry”, “Indian Reservation”, and “Him or Me – What’s It Gonna Be?”. They also sang “Kicks”, which was later ranked among Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

How to Convert a Garage into a Wood Workshop – focuses on dust removal and climate control
Wood Dust Safety – a good article about the dangers of wood dust
DIY Dust Collector – make your own dust collector to save money

Sound Proofing

Woodworking equipment can be loud, so you might want to sound proof your garage so that the noise doesn’t keep your family or your neighbors awake. There are two different options here. The first is to soundproof your garage. This traps the noises within the space. One way of doing this is installing a double wall in your garage. You may need to seek the help of a professional here since this isn’t exactly an easy task. It’s also expensive, plus the double wall will take up some of your work area.