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• Match the Work to the Shop

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In the spring of 1980, my parents experienced a new kind of stress and I was entirely to blame. That was when I got ambitious teenage ideas about converting their nice, quiet, cluttered basement into a productive, profitable, commercial wood shop.

The junk in our basement was replaced with:

• Power tools
• Noise
• Dust
• Finishing fumes
• A steady output of custom furniture that would eventually pay my way through university.

Since then I’ve had three other home workshops, including one where I slept on a fold-up cot rolled out next to my workbench each night, and another where my tablesaw, thickness planer, jointer, drill press and 200 lbs. hardwood workbench were hoisted into the attic over my living room. For more than 20-years I’ve lived with and worked in some kind of in-home shop, and I’m here to tell you a couple of the most valuable things I’ve learned.

Match the Work to the Shop

The first thing to understand is that you can have a functional shop anywhere in your home if you’re willing to work within the limitations of the space. Success isn’t so much about optimizing floor plans and tool layout as it is about reasonable expectations. I know a young woodworker whose furniture now appears in print all over Canada, yet he got his start five years ago in a tiny outdoor workspace he assembled on the balcony of the apartment building where he was living at the time.

Looking back on it now, I realize my long-suffering parents endured more than necessary because my expectations for a basement workshop were much more than the space could reasonably accommodate. The first thing to consider is the balance between:

• The work you have in mind.
• The tools required to complete that work efficiently.
• The capacity of the space you have.

Are your expectations reasonable? As Clint Eastwood warns: You’ve got to know your limitations.

My apartment-dwelling craftsman friend built beautiful furniture ten stories above street level, but only because he was satisfied working exclusively with hand tools. He created small designs with wood he could sneak up in the elevator past the gaze of the superintendent.

Dust and noise were the two plagues that tormented my parents because the situation and workshop budget weren’t large enough to allow for any kind of soundproofing and dust control.

The moral of these true stories is simple:

• Whenever you buy any tool, don’t just consider how much fun it will be to use or how much it costs.
• Do you have the budget and space to set it up properly, with effective dust collection and noise control?
• Don’t let your enthusiasm get the better of you.

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