Well, it’s official! We’re now homeowners of our fourth home, in our third state, in just the last six years. That means I’ve got a clean slate on workshop number four here in beautiful Colorado. Each time we’ve moved I’ve learned new lessons and new designs for setting up the workshop…adding storage, better too placement, more efficient layouts, etc…
The big change this time around is that I’ll be down in the basement. The previous workshop spaces have all been in our garages. It may be a while before I can track down some shots of the first workshop in our first home in Albuquerque, NM, however I do have a few pics from our second home there in NM. I had the two car stall of a three car garage, and it made for some really good space to work in.
It was nice to have a full double garage to work in and living in the desert allowed me to keep the truck parked outside year-round, so I could dedicate the full space to the workshop area. Not the case once we moved to the Land of 10,000 (Frozen) Lakes! For those of you who have experienced the winters of Minnesota, you know what I’m talking about. During those long winter months when the truck needed a home indoors, it meant a serious reduction to the workshop space.
It was just a couple of months ago that we made a trip back to Minnesota to pack up the house and shop after our home sold. This was the second time in less than two years that I walked out of a cleaned out work space, leaving behind cabinetry and peg-board for tools.
Our inside joke is that we buy a house, install cabinets in the workshop and laundry room and then we leave!
We received the keys to the new place on Friday and finally got our first look at the basement with everything cleaned out.
As you can see there is quite a bit of work to do to make the space a good working shop. You can catch a few more details on the house and basement from a previous post at...
The first big projects on the docket are insulation in the ceiling to deaden the shop noise, walling off the laundry and mechanicals, and sheeting the walls with some OSB, so that we can hang cabinets, clamp racks and other tool storage. Eventually I’ll need to add some more lighting and a few more electrical outlets as well.
For all my fellow woodworking brothers and sisters doing their thing below ground, I’d love to hear any of your advice and tips for working in a basement shop.
It’ll be a little over week before our stuff arrives from storage, so we’re using this time to remove some wallpaper, paint and tackle some other projects around the house. While I am waiting on my tools and wood though, I am enjoying some of the local CO flavor…in this case from a small island in the middle of a creek just outside of Empire, CO. Best seat in the house, eh?
Even while I’m without all of my shop gear...things are definitely looking up!
Pete
