Besides making a few items for the shop, like shelves, hanger pegs & a new outfeed table for my table saw… I’ve already made a couple of non-shop projects in my new shop. I made some gingerbread for a friend’s old house & I just finished a Shaker lapdesk & posted it in my “Projects” section.

Posted are a few photos of the finished woodshop. Like all of us woodworkers, I really have a perpetual shop in progress, & am always thinking about ways to make my shop better.

Thank’s to all of those who helped me out on this project. A special thanks to my son-in-law Buck, my neighbor Earl, & a special Thank You to my wife Sue. Who without her wanting her garage back & suggesting that I make a new woodshop for myself, I’d still be shuffling crap around & around in my over crowded garage.

Enjoy the Pix!

There’s nothing like putting up cabinets to let you know how plumb the contractor got the walls. You can see the gap that is at the bottom right of the cabinet on the right of the window. It’s ¾” out in the 60 inches from the top to the bottom of the cabinet… The cabinet is plumb. The window to the right of the entry door is off ½” in the 53” distance from the top of the window opening to the bottom. The window opens, closes & seals well… so it will just have to stay crooked.

Here’s a view of the cabinets over the entry door. My drafting board, desk & computer will go in this corner by the window. Yep, the cabinets are pretty high but space is at a premium. That area over the doors & circuit box is virtually dead space anyway. The less frequently used items will be stored up high & I’ll have a light weight ladder to keep in the shop. The lower cabinets will store the more frequently used items and there is storage space in some of the power tool stands.

The next photo shows the reflectors that are the Christmas present that my wife gave me. They screw right in to the standard type ceiling light receptacles that you probably have in your basements. Then the light bulb screws right into the reflector. It installs in seconds. I like them because of the nostalgic look of the 12” reflector & the efficiency & brightness of the compact florescent light bulbs. There are ten of these reflectors in my woodshop. They were purchased from Buy Hardware Supplies dot com. The same place that I got the barn lights from.

Naturally another problem snuck up on me… That 99.9% efficient gas heater sure is. In fact it’s so efficient that it’s raising the humidity level in the shop by putting all that water vapor into the air. The humidistat says that it’s over 82% in the shop & even those thermal pane windows are sweating very severely. It looks as though a DEhumidifier is in the future for use in the winter.

I’ll be finishing up painting the trim & touching up other areas this week. I hope to be moving in the larger tools this coming weekend.

Here’s the stock filter.

We use this filter material to make custom filters for switchgear at work… It’s about 15 bucks at Home Depot for a piece 1 inch by 36 inches by 20 feet.

I cut the material to size & I can close the grille with two layers of material behind it.

The primary filter still needed cleaning but it did a good job of filtering out plaster dust while I was sanding drywall.

I installed the 30,000 btu gas heater & it works like a champ. And since the inspector had me put the guard over the gas line, the heater installed over the guard & didn’t use up much extra wall space. Mike, my plumber brother-in-law, sez I did a pretty good job on plumbing the gas line. Since it’s a “ventless” heater there’s supposed to be a vent near the ceiling & floor to allow fresh air in to prevent oxygen starvation. I am going to install a grille on the attic ladder door. And since the electric A/C / Heating unit has a setting to allow air to be blown in from outside while heating (& cooling) I am going to let it bring in the fresh air with it’s forced air fan.

My wife wanted to get rid of the old ceiling fan in our kitchen & I put in a new light fixture in it’s place. The old ceiling fan was only used for the lighting because no one liked having the fan blowing down on their food cooling hot food down too fast & warming cold food up too fast. So, being the frugal / cheap person I am, I decided to modify the light on the fan & install it in the center of my woodshop.

I’ll be continuing with the trim tomorrow & will update you-all later.

Next is a view of the rear / entrance to the woodshop. Those two 5 gallon paint containers in the corner on the right are waiting to go on the wall & ceiling. I’m painting everything white to give aid to these middle-age eyes. Notice that rope hanging from the ceiling?

That’s from the attic ladder that my son-in-law, Buck, helped me install yesterday. Buck was also the first person to help me out. When the project first started he helped tear out the old chain link fence & pull up the concreted in posts. I installed the attic ladder for a little storage space…, very little, and for access when I may need to run some electricity to a new tool or light.

Buck also helped me install the pictured heating & cooling unit. It operates properly. I say it operates “properly” because it doesn’t heat very well. It’s really made for a more southern climate where cooling is more important than heating. The heating is rated at 12,000 btu. That’s only about 3500 watts, which is a little more than twice the power of one of those little space heaters that you might put under a desk to warm your feet. Those little space heaters are rated at 1500 watts. It will be satisfactory in mild weather but I don’t want to be trying to keep up with electric bills when it is 30 degrees (F) or even 0 (F) outside. I’ve already made plans to purchase a ventless gas heater to install by that gas line in the corner. They’re not very expensive & will keep up fine. I have a “direct vent” gas heater in my garage & it ALWAYS works great. I love gas heat!!

The air conditioning portion of the unit is 18,000 btu. That will work fine for taking out the humidity on a hot August day in St.Louis. 18,000 btu cooling is capable of handling a thousand square feet & I only have just over 500 square feet.

There’s some plastering left to be done, some painting & I’m starting another portion of the project tomorrow. There will be another update coming a bit sooner than the last one.

I’m running out of warm weather so as you can see… I paid a bit extra to have the siding put on the front of the workshop, where the bricks will go, because I want to get the final inspection done as quickly as possible. I’ll put the brick veneer on this spring. There are new shutters & gutters & a light over the front window.

On the rear of the shop, the landing by the doors has been poured, there’s a light over the doors & the outside recepticle is in. My wife had to hold up the progress on the shop, again, so she could do some landscaping. She did a nice job of dressing up the entrance to my woodshop.

Here’s a close-up of one of the two lights that I chose for the outside of the woodshop. I chose “Barn Lights” to give an ole timey workshop look. I checked out other barn lights on the web, but they were kinda pricy. Especially that place that has barn lights as part of their name, although they do have some very nice lighting. This light cost about 50 bucks each delivered & they take up to a 300 watt light bulb. And they’re heavy duty construction.

It took a while but the gas company finally got the gas meter moved. The paper work took a while but the gas mechanics did a very professional job. One of my brother-in-law plumbers (I have three of them) hooked the meter back up to the gas line in the shop. The outside recepticle in the front is in too.

The building inspector had me make a guard for the gas line where it goes through the shop. And I filled the hole in the floor, where the gas meter was, with concrete.

The grass is growing pretty well where I dug up the front yard & that’s keepin’ the wife happy.

Next time I’ll give an update on the inside… including the drywalling, heating & cooling & an attic ladder

You can also see in this photo of the door that I’m making the form for the 4’X7’ stoop outside the entry door.

More to come.

The new entry doors for the shop arrived too. Nice looking doors. They’re insulated steel doors with the upper portion being thermal pane glass. They will be installed to open outward & appear to be sealed against the weather OK.

And you can see… I am keeping the wife happy by quickly working on the area of the lawn that I destroyed to get the fill dirt. That’s all the sod that I’m putting down. The rest will be seeded & covered with straw.

And then along came Ike! The hurricane that was Ike came ashore in Texas & was reduced to a Tropical Storm. If you were watching the radar on the Weather Channel, you noticed that the eye of the storm came all the way up, over & past St.Louis. Naturally the carpenters cut off the gable end off of the roof where the new shop joins up. There was a crack left open & the ceiling in both of the bedrooms on that end of the house had water leaks. The weather man said there were gusts of wind of up to 50 or 55 mph. The walls shook a bit but the wind didn’t seem to be that strong here & all we got was about 3 to 4 inches of rain in about 24 hours. There was lots of flooding around town & about 60,000 people out of power at one time or another this past weekend.

They were working Monday & Tuesday… So there’s More to Come!