MIMF

If you can swing it, a 24' x 30' would be nice. You could have a 24' x 24" work and storage room, and a 12' x 24' clean room/office/display/visitor room, etc. I'd be inclined to arrange the tooling centrally and have various specialized work stations arranged around the perimeter.

That would be a very narrow 12' office space :^)

My shop is 25 x 25 with an area 10 x 8 partitioned off for the lawn mower, yard tools and bicycles. I find it plenty big enough for building guitars but when I get a furniture project happening it cramps up in a hurry. I'm building my son a large desk right now. I've had to do it in pieces... and move one piece into the house before I can start the next piece.

I have 8ft ceilings and I don't think I'd want them any higher than that. It's hard enough to heat as it is and i don't want to have to climb a ladder to get warm.

I wish my shop was that big. My shop is a car and a half deep garage that I share an oil tank and water softening system with. My Volvo got evicted! I need to make my bench smaller. It's 48 x 72 inches made out of a solid Birch door slab. Got a great deal on it.

I got around to cleaning the shop so I though I might post some shops. The shop is only about 230 sq. feet but it is right off the kitchen so very handy. The roof is translucent so it lets a LOT of light in during the day, but unfortunately a lot of heat as well.

Looking left, PC, work bench and storage. The tale allows me to use my tabletop tools, which are the jointer, chop saw, table saw, and jig saw. Looking right, a mid-range Harbor Freight drill press, a Grizzly Ultimate band saw with riser block, more storage, and a Performax 10/20 drum sander. And what's inside the shower curtain shroud? A much used CNC router. I keep the shop-vac on the wall for dust collection on the machine. And when I need a break, the door to the right leads to a small patio with a great view of the vintage aircraft on approach to the local airport.

Great! When do I move in? Winter this year leaves me wanting somewhere like that! The CNC looks good too!

I'm currently building a shop here at the house. It's 20' x 36' with a 9' ceiling. I'm splitting the downstairs into 2 rooms... 20' x 24' for all of my big equipment, and a 20' x 12' room that I'll keep heated and cooled for building guitars. Upstairs is 14' x 36' with an 8' ceiling and will be a place where people can come and hang out and play music. I didn't want to give up any internal space with a staircase, so I will build external stairs up to a deck off of the back side of the shop. I plan to use a ductless mini-split system to heat and cool the bench room and the upstairs.

It's been a year since I broke ground, and it's slow going because I'm doing all of the work myself (and with the help of good friends), but the cost is only in the materials and I've found great deals on Craigslist for a lot of it. I love Crafstman styling, as you an see in these pics:

Now THAT's a shop!

Bob Gramann wrote:Yikes! I never posted the pictures. One more thing to add: behind the shelves, where you can't see it, is a regular utility sink. It's very useful.

Nice looking shop.