OK, so your significant other is tired of you taking up “Their Space” in the house or the garage. Too much “junk” can definitely put a damper on a relationship with the hustle and bustle of our day.
Maybe it is time for a shop. At my house we have our garage for parking the cars and miscellaneous other stuff and then we have my SHOP. When my wife is sick of me trying to help around the house and failing, she now sends me to “The Shop”. A lot of customers ask me what size of shop they need. I always respond with “what are you going to be doing and putting in your shop”. Maybe you have an old vehicle you want to tinker around on. Maybe you want a combination shop for wrenching and a shop for woodworking. Maybe you want a split shop to share with your significant other. One side is for woodworking and tooling around and the other is a sewing area. Maybe you want a place to store extra vehicles and all the stuff you shouldn’t store outside. That is what my shop is. I use it to work on the motorcycles and mowers and any wood projects I come up with. Working at a lumber store I have the reward of dumpster diving and finding great things that would otherwise be thrown away. Most of the employees will put something out back and then tell me to check it out to see if I want it. Whether it is an old display or just some wood used as breakers or for shipping, I usually take it. It then goes back to the SHOP. I try not to tell my wife anymore when I bring home the stuff because she always asks “what are you going to do with that”. Since most of the time I don’t know, it is just easier to sneak it in the shop than to have a 10 minute explanation of what I am going to do with it. Anyway, back to your shop. The most common sizes are 24x30x10 and 30x40x10. We can do a range of different sizes but those are the best sellers. Some have 1 Garage door and 1 walk door. Some have multiple Garage doors and multiple windows. I tell everyone to draw out a simple sketch of what they are looking for and draw in the items they will be putting in there. When I designed my shop I built the size (based at the time) on what would go in there. I put a bench on the back wall and knew at some point I would put cabinets down both walls. A 24x30, depending on how you orientate it, will give you a 2 car garage with a little space to put up a small workbench and some other small table top tools. A 30x40 with allow you to have a 2 car garage and have a dedicated shop area for woodworking and working on the mowers, vehicles and other misc stuff. My shop is now too small and I wish I had it about 10ft longer. I have never built a shop and someone said it was too big. You don’t want to break the bank but you also want to get what you need and then a little extra. I have some of my customers that have marked out a spot in the yard with flags or wooden stakes and then parked all the vehicles and misc big items inside the marked area to see how it will lay out. If you will be putting a car lift in you will want at least 12ft tall so you can raise up the vehicle without hitting trusses. If you will be lifting up conversion vans or something pretty tall you will want 14ft or 16ft. I will always do my best to help you get the shop you need and can afford. You just need to decide if it’s time to turn the dream into reality so someone can yell at you to “go to the shop”.
Jeremy: