I spent a day and a few evenings insulating the ceilings and walls. I used Roxul’s Safe ‘n Sound, double layer on the ceiling and double layer on any 6” walls. Even though it’s not fiberglass, it’s still disgusting. I wore a good dust mask, eye protection, gloves and a disposable full painters suit. My ceiling joists in half the room were 12” on center so I had to cut the insulation in half. The air was thick with little bits of insulation for hours at a time and because it’s summer and because of all the gear I was wearing, it was hot, sweaty work. I didn’t like this job, can you tell? Just kept focusing on the shop. Short term annoyance, long term reward.

Ceiling and one of the walls

All the equipment and tools crammed into one half of the shop, so that I can hang the ceiling gyproc.

At some point, someone ran hot and cold water into this corner of the basement, but there’s no drain…strange

More South side walls that needed insulating, ready for drywall.

Bathroom wall needed it too, I took this opportunity to remove the disgusting carpet from the bathroom

Once the insulation was up, it was time to hang the drywall. I just used 1/2 standard stuff, ten footers. Without anyone helping me, renting the lift was a no-brainer decision. $34 from HD for 24 hours…worth every single penny.

Some of the strategically located 10 footers…I’m still giddy that my shop is big enough to load 10 foot anything into it

The back saver, even if I’d had help, hanging drywall on a ceiling is no fun…this little device let me do it solo and it cost a tiny $34 for 24 hours

I mean really, how cool is that…I just measure, cut, crank the wheel and then screw it to the joists

Half the ceiling done, had to move all the shop stuff over to this side so that I can work on the other. I think that took as much time as hanging the drywall.

The lift, ready to be loaded for the second half of the room.

All done…I hope one layer is enough of a sound barrier

That “should” be the worst of the ugly work. From here on out it’s benches, shelves, lighting, cabinets, electrical…relatively clean stuff, and certainly more enjoyable for me. I’ve been checking the used goods websites for a prehung solid core door 32”...nothing quite right in the last few weeks…I may end up making one, give me an excuse to make a solid fir frame and panel door right?

Thanks for reading…

The wood pile is getting sorted, time to get the rack set up

Much better now that it’s just wood shop tools

Even from this angle, clutter, but manageable

Wood rack’s up, now I really have space to move things around

The “Dry Fit”
I’ve already done a pretty comprehensive sketchup model (first blog in this series), but now that we’ve moved in it’s time to see how the space feels with the tools in place (roughly). So I finished assembling the machines, and wherever possible I set up the different stations. In some cases using sawhorses in place of the eventual built in benches (just to get things to the right height). In other cases, equipment just sat on the floor.

All in all, it did give me a very good sense of the feel of the space. One thing I discovered was that I was not going to be able to have my table saw and my jointer run beside each other (like Jim Tolpin’s setup). I just didn’t have enough room to do that comfortably. So the jointer will go up against South wall, and the sheet goods will move to the West wall.

This exercise also helped me realise where I need to put my air exchanger. Originally I had planned to put it above the table saw. After reading some books on setting up a shop (Sandor Nagyszalanczy’s is a very good book and full of ideas for your shop) I learned that it is probably better to have the air filter along a wall, to create a circular flow of air to carry the fine lingering dust into the filter. I didn’t think I’d have the ceiling space to do this. Turns out after the test set up, that there was a space along the North wall that was out of the way enough. So when I set up for real, that’s where the air filter will go.

Full Stop…surprise!
At this point I’m thinking that I’m just hours away from setting up the shop for real…add a couple built-ins, and start making some sawdust.
Then…my first surprise, there’s no insulation between the basement and the floor above.
A quick test confirms my fear, the noise in the living room above the shop is deafening. I’m going to need to pull down the current ceiling and add very good insulation.
This wasn’t planned for, nor was it in the budget. After a couple days of pondering I realise that even if it meant dipping into savings or RRSPs, my shop has to be made usable.

Then another surprise, the carpet in this space was going to have to come out. It’s almost an indoor/outdoor carpet so I was going to leave it, but it turns out to be rotting from some previous water problems and there’s mildew, as well, it has definitely been home to some pet accidents from the previous tenants.

I really wish I’d known about these things before we moved in…this space was empty for 3 weeks, that would have been the perfect time to do it…now with all my equipment in there? Well, let’s just say I’ve “moved” my shop about 6 or 7 times this last month.

First job, rip up the carpet and underlay. Next I pulled down the ceiling tiles, and the 1×2s that were serving as strapping for the tiles.
Here’s a couple shots of the space with my tools roughly laid out and the ceiling ready for insulating.

The drum sander will serve as outfeed support for the table saw.

During the ceiling tile removal I uncovered another little surprise.

I do some more reading about soundproofing (or at least lowering the amount of sound transfer), and I learn that obviously just doing the ceiling above my tools isn’t enough if I’ve got uninsulated walls that lead to rooms with uninsulated ceilings…sound will travel (quite effectively) along this path and eventually end up in the upstairs of the house.
Essentially, the solution is to create an enclosed space that is as insulated as I can make it. This means two sections of the South wall will have to be ripped down and insulated. As well I’ll have to install a solid core door in the entrance. When this is all done, if the sound transfer is still to high, I’m going to try another layer of drywall along with this material called “green glue”. That’s the best I can realistically do, I’m not going to create a series of floating interior walls, this will just have to be enough.

That’s it for now…next up, insulating and hanging drywall.
thanks for reading…

Here’s the space before we moved in.

Walking in the door

Looking to the right

All the way in, by the window, looking at the exit.

Then the move happened…by the time the movers got to moving my shop equipment and collection of wood, they had lost a lot of their finesse. They just dumped everything in the shop. **Warning, the following few pictures are disturbing (at least they were to me…seriously, I felt a little sick seeing the contents of my once sacred man-cave littering the floor like so much trash)

Workbench top, drill press stand and other assorted shop bits

Table saw body, jointer base, chop saw, etc…

Pile of lumber, lathe, the top of my jointer just lying on the ground…the horror!

That’s it for now.
Next, it’s time to make sense of this chaos.
...thanks for reading

So I’ve spent a few hours in sketchup, working on the layout. I was able to find existing models for most of my tools, as well, there is the recent workbench from pop woodworking (there’s my first project in the new shop) and a nice tool cabinet.

What do you guys think of the use of space? The tablesaw, jointer, planer(in the green swivel top cart/outfeed table), bandsaw and drill press will all be on wheels (as they are now in my crawlspace). But I want to move them as little as possible. The shopvac under the miter saw table will be hooked up for dust control to blast gates at most major machines.
Have I overlooked anything?
You think things should be laid out differently?
I really appreciate any and all feedback.
And no, I don’t actually have that many Bessey clamps…but maybe if I build it they will come :).

here’s a link to the sketchup file if you want to download it and check it out in full 3D goodness. http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=64a4b69fb2055e0034e052ab3a0e8988

Oh, and if any of you sketchup gurus can tell me how to get the file size of this model to be smaller, that would be great. I’ve removed all image “materials” from the model and used components instead of groups in most cases where an item is used repeatedly, and I’ve purged all unused layers and components but I’m still stuck with a 7 MB file.

From New Shop Layout

thanks for any advice, take care.