Dennis’ Garage Workshop

My workshop is a continual work in progress. I sometimes feel like I work more ON my shop rather than IN my shop. That being the case, this is its current incarnation.

The workshop is in my garage which is an extra deep two stall. The extra depth is actually large enough to be a third stall. The overall size is about 10′ x 24′. A few years ago, I built a wall between the workshop and the rest of the garage so I could heat the workshop in the winter. I live in Michigan and the winters can be…well…brrr. The wall contains a set of double doors that open wide for moving tools and sheet goods in and out of the shop. I built the doors from a White Ash tree that blew over in a storm on my property. There is another single door that my family and I use to get to the back door of the garage to access the backyard. Between the doors are a few mobile tools; the planer, table saw, and miter saw.

Moving to the west end of the shop I have my workbench which I inherited from my wife’s step-dad. Rumor has it that it’s at least 150 years old. It looks like it too. It is not very usable other than a place to set things. The top is so beat up that it is not even close to being flat anymore. I’m afraid of putting too much torque on the vice handles for fear of breaking them. The dog holes look like they have been chewed on by dogs. I am tempted to move it into the basement and use it as a piece of furniture somehow.

The south wall contains my CNC work center. I bought a 1000mm X-Carve last year and have been making some signs to sell on Etsy. Below the CNC table are a couple more mobile tools; the router table and the jointer.

The east end of the shop is sort of a catch-all. It has my lathe and a cabinet, but it is where I end up dumping everything that I don’t have a place for. The workshop does occasionally spill over into the rest of the garage when I have to work with large sheet goods or long pieces of lumber. Mostly, though, I stay in my cozy little single stall.