My Shop

Initially I wanted to build a monster garage (really a hangar) which I was selling to my wife as a basic detached garage.  Reality eventually took hold -- it would have been nice (and still would be :-), but not necessary.  You can build in a 1-car garage sized space, and I'm lucky enough to be building in a 2-car garage.  This is how I managed to setup for building.

Step 1 (optional) - First things first

Before I was about to change any family "standards", I first wanted to soften things up with a few household projects.  We upgraded our windows and made ourselves a yard in the back.  Wife loves the windows, and the kids love the new yard.

Step 2 - Make a shop NOW

This works if you have a 1- or 2-car garage, or plan to build in your basement.  Identify the best spot in your garage to build, and make all the clutter in that area go away.  Don't worry about where it goes, just make it go.  Get as much shelf, table, and pegboard space going as you can. 

 
Get your laughbox fixed if you don't think that hammer is funny.  I never made the cloth/epoxy cart.

I began building in just one half of the garage on an old conference room table from work. 

Step 3 - Get busy and build

Do the practice projects in chapter 3 and you'll ease right into chapter 4.  You really only need a 4'x4' flat surface for everything through chapter 4.  Finish chapter 4 before proceeding to the next step.

Step 4 - Stop building

Without proper planning with shop setup, your shop was just waiting for an event to bring all of its function and your progress to a complete standstill.  This might be a pile of crap placed in the wrong path, the introduction of more junk, or something from left field, as what happened to me...

"F!"  I discovered this mess after finding a soggy ant lodged on the end of a cable I was snaking up from the basement into my living room.

At about the same time as this disaster I inherited my grandfather's basement and garage full of "neat stuff", which seemed to seek out every square inch of table and floor space available in my garage.  Add your standard homeowner equipment (lawn mowers, leaf blowers, etc.) and you can imagine what a mess everything was -- I could hardly walk in there let alone build.

Step 5 - Setup a real shop

After my fragile shop was put out of commission, I had to regroup.  I figured the only way to get a shop was to:

• get a shed to put the stuff into
• get everything out of BOTH bays of the garage
• BOTH cars stay outside

After selling this plan to my wife, I bought a large shed (1-car garage sized, matching the house) to take all the stuff I needed a new home for.

I can't believe it took me so long to get a shed for my house in the first place.  Airplane building is good for the home!  :-)

So here's what my shop is looking like right now -- still a mess, but getting there.

     
With the door insulation, that heater easily gets the temp up to 65F with 20F outside (just add $).

Now we're talking!

In hindsight, it was a great experience building the bulkheads without much of a shop.  In fact, you may want to do the same -- build your bulkheads, and THEN figure out how you really want your shop setup.  Hmmm, maybe I meant to do it that way.  ;-)

Step 6 - The Future:  Shop 3.0 (or House 3.0)

I know I need a full-size door at some point so that I can get the plane in and out with the strakes on to flip it now and again.  This isn't going to happen with two standard-sized doors I have right now.  The problem is that in order to do this work, I need to spend some $ on an architect and contractors to add beams and whatnot (there's a room above the garage).  When/if I do this, I'll do the following at the same time:

• tear all sheetrock down
• add electric outlets and lights
• insulate
• add beams
• remove columns

Then I will be styling, but until then I'll be just fine building all the major of parts for a few years...