<200 sq ft solutions: fold-down bench

[DeanJackson]

So, my shop is somewhere between 150 and 200 square feet; the room is about 10x15, with doors on three (three!) walls; one to the laundry room, one outside, and one to the rest of the basement.

My girlfriend - bless her genius - looked at my setup, and said "you need to take the workbench out. it's ruining the shop." After breathing and keeping calm for a few seconds, I asked, "ah, what?" Kelly responds: "hinge the top of the workbench to the wall with really sturdy hinges. Put removable posts under the front. When you're using the tablesaw for bigger stuff, you can fold down the workbench and have *tons* more room in here."

It took me two days, and was the idea of the year.

- The bench itself is six pieces of 3" thick pine glued together with two 6" wide battens screwed and glued onto the bottom.

- I attached another 6x2" piece of pine to the wall, and put the hinges between the wall supports and the battens.

- When folded out, the weight of the table rests directly *on* the wall supports, not on the hinges. This seems the important part.

- The posts are 4x4" pine with a 1/2" roundover on all edges.

It's not the looker of a traditional hard maple cabinetmaker's bench, but it gets the job done, and makes the shop much, much, much more usable space for bigger jobs. The sturdiness of the bench has never been an issue; I have no troubles banging out through-mortises in walnut, and can sit on the bench without any problems.

[Lawrence Brown]

Hmm, your situation may be different, but my workbench is never clear enough to fold against a wall. That's where I put everything from the tablesaw when I'm running it!

[TomP]

So, my shop is somewhere between 150 and 200 square feet; the room is about 10x15, with doors on three (three!) walls; one to the laundry room, one outside, and one to the rest of the basement.

My girlfriend - bless her genius - looked at my setup, and said "you need to take the workbench out. it's ruining the shop." After breathing and keeping calm for a few seconds, I asked, "ah, what?" Kelly responds: "hinge the top of the workbench to the wall with really sturdy hinges. Put removable posts under the front. When you're using the tablesaw for bigger stuff, you can fold down the workbench and have *tons* more room in here."

It took me two days, and was the idea of the year.

- The bench itself is six pieces of 3" thick pine glued together with two 6" wide battens screwed and glued onto the bottom.

- I attached another 6x2" piece of pine to the wall, and put the hinges between the wall supports and the battens.

- When folded out, the weight of the table rests directly *on* the wall supports, not on the hinges. This seems the important part.

- The posts are 4x4" pine with a 1/2" roundover on all edges.

It's not the looker of a traditional hard maple cabinetmaker's bench, but it gets the job done, and makes the shop much, much, much more usable space for bigger jobs. The sturdiness of the bench has never been an issue; I have no troubles banging out through-mortises in walnut, and can sit on the bench without any problems.

Very smart girl Dean. She sounds like a keeper

[Dyami Plotke]

Nice work, Dean. What else do you do to keep your small space productive?

[DeanJackson]

Nice work, Dean. What else do you do to keep your small space productive?

The other trick - from my girlfriend - was to often look at a piece of the room, and consider *what* I'd ideally put there if nothing was there already. If that something is more useful there than what's already there... it's time to move, remove, and rebuild things until it works that way.

The biggest problem is that the tablesaw, router, and planer all require dedicated setup and teardown time; to use them, I have to reconfigure the room. On the plus side, I can have a tablesaw, router, and planer in the space. That's the big part I haven't figured out yet; work here is slow due to not having dedicated space for all of the large tools, and a fullsize jointer is right out. (a 6" blade/24" bed jointer helps, and I also use a Stanley #7 with a shooting board.)

Storage upgrades have been the other win. I've put a lot of thought into what goes where; one of the nearest pieces of wall has had 2x4"s bolted to it to be used as a clamp rack, and one piece of wall being upgraded to pegboard to hold hand tools at eye height is also a winner. Behind me, eye level, is a shelf of hand-held powertools; the trim router, circ saw, jigsaw, etc. I built a sanding storage box; ten 9x12" shelves, and room for the orbital sander. I bought a benchtop drill press... and built a stand underneath that fits my router table and a scrap bin.

[Dyami Plotke]

Sounds pretty efficient. Much more so than I am so far.

You may want to take a look at my slide out tool cabinet at penultimatewoodshop.com it holds about 2.5 times as much pegboard as it takes up in wall space, and the drawer faces keep dust off the contents. It's not pretty, but It works.

[DeanJackson]

Sounds pretty efficient. Much more so than I am so far.

You may want to take a look at my slide out tool cabinet at penultimatewoodshop.com it holds about 2.5 times as much pegboard as it takes up in wall space, and the drawer faces keep dust off the contents. It's not pretty, but It works.

The pegboard I've got now is front-and-center; drills, screwdrivers, hammer, saws all hang there.

But for less-used stuff, your design would *really* fit well on the side of my shop, and make some less-than-useful shelf space into a champ. Hunh. New project!

[Dyami Plotke]

Glad it'll be of some use to you. Once you do get around to building it, please post some photos. We'd love to see it.

[jrh0558]

I too have a very tight shop.

I'm starting to put up French cleats on the walls to take advantage of that space yet keeping it flexible to move around in the future.

[bywc]

Man I wish I had studs to actually hang stuff on the wall my shop is actually slightly smaller than yours coming in at only 140 foot 10x14 thankfully I have use of the basement for bigger floor standing tools such as band saw/planer but the rest is up in the workshop and unfortunately with it being a metal building actually a "Shed" lol it has thin metal beams and braces so can't hang crap on it lol so its all floor space that gets used for everything aspect.

One of the main problems i am now starting to realize is having a 7 foot router table with a bench top drill press on one end and 2 other benches one for assembling and one for smaller hand work which has peg board behind it to hang tools for hand work on isn't the best set up after reading your post I realize its time to try and eliminate at least one of the three benches because as you can see in the pic's it doesn't exactly leave me much room.

I am trying to figure out a way of going vertical as if I can free up more floor space it will make it more functional if I come up with anything Ill be sure to share gonna start working on it tomorrow if I get chance.

[PaulMarcel]

Are you not able to put a plywood sheet on the wall and screw into it from the outside in the "rib" we see i the picture? I'd think that if you put the right type of screws perhaps 5 to a vertical sheet in each rib, you'd somewhat form a torsion box. You could then attach things to the ply. Depending on which part of Earth you are from, you might even be able to fill the void between the ply and metal wall with foam to get some insulative properties (although you'll still have a lot of thermal bridging). I'd look to JamestownDistributors.com for the right type of screws; they have many made for attaching metal to wood in boatbuilding.

For the ply, I think I'd look at tongue and groove sheathing ply so you get a good joint between sheets.

Honestly can't tell if this is viable based on the smaller pictures.

[bywc]

Id be scared to, to be honest about 2 months back I tripped over my dog and caught myself with my hand against the side and had to spend about an hour trying to straighten the panel back out the stuff is paper thin and the braced that run down each side and along the back is just about as thin it seems,I could pretty much just bend it in hand with my hands with little to no effort its just one of those lowe's cheapy sheds. its only ment to be a temp thing but a year later im still in it lol waiting on funds

[PaulMarcel]

Oh, okay, I know the type you are talking about. My parents had one similar and, yeah, leaning on it was all it took. There'd be other options, but they get too complicated for what they are worth. Better to save the money on the T&G ply and save for a great shop

[Beechwood Chip]

If it's that thin, wouldn't screwing plywood to it reinforce it?

[bywc]

Oh yeah it probably would make it stronger but the thing lowes forgets to tell you is yeah its a cheap shed but you end up spending a crap load on silicone and tarps just trying to stop it from leaking lol the idea of introducing a bunch more holes that have the potential to leak just doesn't seem worth the time and effort for this piece of junk to be honest lol i just gotta keep saving my pennies until I have enough to get the Mennonite to come in pour a slab and build one and keep dreaming until then .

[NotAShakerMaker]

Wait a minute, lets back up here. Your girl friend was in your shop? How did that happen?

[Pitts]

The biggest problem is that the tablesaw, router, and planer all require dedicated setup and teardown time; to use them, I have to reconfigure the room. On the plus side, I can have a tablesaw, router, and planer in the space. That's the big part I haven't figured out yet; work here is slow due to not having dedicated space for all of the large tools, and a fullsize jointer is right out. (a 6" blade/24" bed jointer helps, and I also use a Stanley #7 with a shooting board.)

My shop is about the same size. It's also got a sliding door that goes outside where the roof overhangs about 6 feet. I had to plan my layout around the doors of the room. I have my planer on a heavy duty sliding drawer I made under my work bench. I just pull it out and I can feed lumber through the door to outside. My jointer just needs to be swung around about 10" and I can feed longer pieces out the door. The table saw is lined up so I can feed longer pieces in through the other door. I've also got my shop vac stored in a cabinet outside with a remote switch.

I live in Hawaii, so storing things outside isn't a problem. It's a really good space saver if you can use it.

[DeanJackson]

Nice work, Dean. What else do you do to keep your small space productive?

Wound up putting the chop saw onto double-locking casters; debating what else might work that well. The chop saw only sits 6" off the floor, so it requires some effort to use, but it used to sit directly on the floor and get hefted place to place, mostly just to get it out of the way.

I put the planer on a long board (4'x2') with double-locking casters under that, but *dang*, this is a pain to use with heavy boards. I may suck it up, move that up to a better height, and set it up to work with <a href="http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesPDF.aspx?id=24118">this jig</a> so that I can sell my jointer and clear up that space.