Shop organization. Please help this disaster!

[Fxguy]

Ok, admittedly my ADD and laziness has finally gotten me and consumed my shop space. Posting some photos of nothing else to help shame myself into doing something about this mess.

So please go easy and forgive me of my sins. I don't even know where to start. Please advise on some practical step by step things to get this under control and get back to work.

Thanks !

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[Jim DaddyO]

Wow, you even left a kid laying on the floor.  Those are hard to misplace.  

Pull everything out, put the tools in a nice arrangement, put shelves where the tools are not for storage.  Lots of shop projects in a clean up.

[..Kev]

Yep, that one's going to need a gut job!

There's a few shop orgo threads in this section you might want to take a look at.  It would appear that you don't park anything other than kids in there so, you should have plenty of space to have a nice shop.

Where are you located?  Might have to see if you're on my work travels

 

[Cochese]

Best advice I can give is to take everything out that does not have a home. Put back things that you then make a home for. Trash the remainder.

Easier said than done, but a clear space works as well as a clear mind. 

[Chet]

First step is to admit you have a problem and I think you just did that.

Second step, if you are dead serious about fixing it, you need to follow everything that the person two posts above me (TIODS) suggests.  He's the Man!!!

[Fxguy]

Thanks guys! We haven't parked anything in there in a while..but my wife would really like to get her car back in there. TIODS could you link to one or two of the threads you recommend? Located in Champaign, Il btw.

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[..Kev]

Wow!  I haven't been in Champaign since the late 80s..  I'll drop a couple links in here when I find them.

So, here's a couple where you can grab some ideas.. 

http://www.woodtalkonline.com/topic/23894-miter-saw-station-time-need-advice-and-questions/

 http://www.woodtalkonline.com/topic/23940-shop-tour/

 http://www.woodtalkonline.com/topic/23852-shop-tour-getting-there/

I know that Dave Stanton has a shop tour in there someplace as well but, I couldn't find it.  He has it posted on YT as well I think.. 

 

[Chet]

Heres a small garage shop.

Small Garage Shop

 

[..Kev]

11 minutes ago, Chet K. said:

Heres a small garage shop.

Small Garage Shop

 

Yea, I probably shouldn't have forgotten that one

 

[mat60]

You could make a big dent in that mess in just one weekend. Listen to the guys they are a great help.

[Fxguy]

Making a big dent is easier said than done. We have two little ones (1 and 3) who are a handful and leave little time out in the shop at the moment (which is why cleaning and organizing is so important, to save me some time looking for things!). 

I originally built the table saw / router table cart so that the very heavy table saw would be mobile while at the same time saving me some room. However it is so huge I probably should rethink it. Especially because I don't really use the router table much. I use my tablesaw and bandsaw more than anything. Planner and joiner don't use too much. I ended up taking every hand tool I could find and dumping into a drawer in preparation for this endeavor. 

Another problem is that its not as much a woodshop as it is a maker shed. I do a lot of electronics / animatronics and metal work out there in addition to to working with wood so I'm having trouble thinking through the design / layout for a multipurpose space. 

Thanks for the links! Trying to read through them tonight while playing legos! :-) 

 

[Coop]

3 hours ago, TIODS said:

Yep, that one's going to need a gut job!

There's a few shop orgo threads in this section you might want to take a look at.  It would appear that you don't park anything other than kids in there so, you should have plenty of space to have a nice shop.

Where are you located?  Might have to see if you're on my work travels

 

Kev, you're glutten for punishment. I was going to suggest he have a garage sale but perhaps a roll off is more in order!

[..Kev]

Just now, K Cooper said:

Kev, you're glutten for punishment. I was going to suggest he have a garage sale but perhaps a roll off is more in order!

This one's worse than @Llama

 

[Coop]

I'm darn proud of mine now and I still can't find my ds! 

[Just Bob]

That looks like it could be a really nice shop.  This is where I would start.

If you don't have a way of hauling stuff to the dump, call your trash hauler and rent a dumpster.  They rent all sizes and when I did it a couple of years ago it was very cheap.

Then separated your stuff into 3 piles, trash, keep, sell/donate.  Be very critical here, my rule is if I haven't used it in 6 months it goes.  There are exceptions of course but they are rare.

Once you've cleaned up think about your work flow for the large tools, use  your pc with something like this:http://www.grizzly.com/workshopplanner or just blue tape on the floor to plan your layout.  This will probably change so be flexible.

You can create areas that separate from the woodworking for the electronic/metal working once you have a clean slate it is easier to visualize what you need.  Build your storage and other shop needs and you are off to the races. 

Once you start it will get easier.

[freedhardwoods]

I should have taken some pics also. My shop was much worse than that when I decided to clean it up to make cabinets.

When you stand back and look at a mess like that, you don't know where to start. I got started by picking out one thing and putting it away. Then one more,etc, etc.

I had to build a few shelves and in a couple days I had everything put away and realized I had so much stuff (I'm a tool and parts hoarder) I didn't have room to work. That's why I'm adding on to my shop now.

I rarely throw anything away. I have dug into my stash and used things I picked up years ago many times.

[Fxguy]

59 minutes ago, freedhardwoods said:

I should have taken some pics also. My shop was much worse than that when I decided to clean it up to make cabinets.

When you stand back and look at a mess like that, you don't know where to start. I got started by picking out one thing and putting it away. Then one more,etc, etc.

I had to build a few shelves and in a couple days I had everything put away and realized I had so much stuff (I'm a tool and parts hoarder) I didn't have room to work. That's why I'm adding on to my shop now.

I rarely throw anything away. I have dug into my stash and used things I picked up years ago many times.

LOL. Sad to say these are AFTER I had already rented a dumpster and hauled off a lot of junk. Had a friend from church who came over and cleared everything out for me since time is at a premium with the little ones. 

I too tend to hoard parts and scraps thinking I'll never know when I may have a project that could use this...and it has happened a few times where I've dug through scrap and had just the right parts. 

 

I definitely think I need to start with figuring out where I'm going to permanently store the big stuff (table saw, bench, etc... and then build a few more shelves / drawer units to start. Part of the problem is not everything has had a home to start with. 

 

 

[Coop]

I'm not far behind you bud, well, I take that back. But anyhow, what pisses me off is to drive by a house with garage door open and there's nothing in there, not even a toilet plunger! 

[mat60]

1 hour ago, Fxguy said:

 Sad to say these are AFTER I had already rented a dumpster and hauled off a lot of junk.. 

 

 

Oh my.       Do you have any pics of the garage before the dumpster ?

[Jim DaddyO]

Pick a corner or small section of wall, clear it, make what needs to be made for that area so you can get things picked up.  Then pick the worst little area, clean that.  Do that every time you go into the shop and pretty soon the worst area is not that bad any more.  It doesn't matter what you put up on shelves or where the shelves are to start.  Just getting things picked up and kinda put away for now.  Organise it when you have room to organise.

[Coop]

[ClassAct]

Yeah, organizing can be a challenge, and feels so darn overwhelming. So many things to move before you can move other things, and no staging area to work with. It's like one of those sliding-number puzzles without the open space in it.

If I was one of those professional-organizer people like TIODS, here's what I'd recommend:

*Do some thinking about what kind of work you'll be doing in the shop -- not what you'd like to do, but what you probably will do in the coming year. Kitchen cabinets? Toys for the kids? Custom boxes for your makercraft? If you're not doing a lot of work with sheet goods, I'd rethink owning a table saw. Even if it's mobile it requires you to spend a lot of time and effort juggling your floor plan before you even begin to touch wood to blade. Yes, it's great to have, but must you have it for the majority of your projects? Similarly, if you tend to buy finished lumber, then the jointer and planer may need to go.

*Make several plans. You can find garage shop layouts online, as well as tool templates for creating your own layout. Garage conversions are probably the most common shop types so you'll have plenty of inspiration. Take a look at WOOD Magazine's "Idea Shop" series; they've done some buildouts of garages over the years and have tool templates you can download. Make several drawings -- don't try to nail it first time out. Change assumptions. ("What if the car is on the left side of the garage instead of the right?") Brainstorm with a buddy.

16 hours ago, Just Bob said:

Then separated your stuff into 3 piles, trash, keep, sell/donate.  Be very critical here, my rule is if I haven't used it in 6 months it goes.  There are exceptions of course but they are rare.

*Just Bob nailed it. Grab a buddy who is a good devil's advocate/ skeptical bugger, open the garage door, and use your strictest triage to go through the mess. Be ruthless. I guarantee you don't need three worn #2 Phillips screwdrivers, or 90% of that scrap lumber, or the backup cordless screwdriver, or the 1/8 quart of two-cycle oil, or.... You get the idea. You have a lot of yard stuff mixed in there; do you really need to store rakes in the garage, or would a small plastic storage closet in the back yard make more sense? How about a wood one that you build? When you're done, the keep pile should be the smallest of the three. No joke.

*Do a dry run with the layout. Move the shop tools to their places and use blue tape to mark out cabinets, etc. Pretend you're working on a project: you have raw wood, now joint/face/dimension it using your setup. Now assemble the parts with clamps, glue, dowels/nails/screws/pocket jigs/whatever. Your makerspace is being used to build a robot arm. Where do you store the solder station, variable power supply, metalworking tools?

*After you've got your layout and dry run experiments done, think about power outlets, lighting, dust collection, and ventilation. How do you make this space safe to work in, and safe for your kids should they sneak in when you're not looking? Don't forget to make the space "fun", too. Internet? Cable TV? Music? It's a man cave, baby!

*Finally, the fun part. Run wires, add lights, dust control and ventilation, build storage units, workbenches, more storage units, whatever. Oh, and don't forget to buy your wife that nice gift you know she's wanted. She deserves it for putting up with your shop obsession the past few weeks. :D

[Coop]

ClassAct, if I could like this twice, I would. You and Bob both nailed it!  OP just has to get rid of that nonessential, non-woodworking crap before he can move forward. Hi, I'm Fxguy, and I want to do better, no later than -----, and hit that date! 

[Llama]

On 11/6/2016 at 4:35 PM, TIODS said:

This one's worse than @Llama

 

Yeah! My kid wasn't laying on the floor. lol

 

[Chet]

Kev said there wasn't any room for you kid to lay on the floor.