New Workshop - Layout

My first workshop was a room in the basement of our first home. Though it was very convenient to be able to walk down the stairs and do some work, getting material up and down the stairs was aggravating to say the least. The narrow room was also awkward to work in.

I was very happy to have an extra garage with our new house which has become my permanent workshop. I've been working in it for about two years now and am very pleased with the size and location of the shop. It's at the back of our yard, only a short walk from the house. Since it has nice big (insulated) garage doors, I can open them on nice days to keep an eye on the kids or to move materials in and out.

Recently I measured out the workshop and drew up a plan in Sketchup. You can find a wide array of tools in the Sketchup 3D Warehouse, and I found another good resource from John Yurko on his website at http://www.yda-online.com/shopmodels.htm. He's got a number of common tools that you can use to help map out your current or future workshop.

Below you can see what my workshop looks like in Sketchup. You can see the original Sketchup file in the 3D warehouse here.