Recently, I have been asked about my shop. Some didn't know it had been that bad or why. So I thought I would provide some history for you and some lessons for myself.
My shop and its related misadventures have always been a source for jokes (mostly by me)
.gif "Drogar Laugh(DBG)")
Finally after over 3 years, Now I have it were I really like it. It meets almost all my goals and those that it doesn't, it can, because I have the storage I need and I still have 2 more storage cabinets, I plan to make. A combination out-feed, assembly table with drawers in its base. Finally put drawers in the under the drill press cabinet.
Right now, I can freely walk from work station to work station and get my work done, find most things reasonably quickly when I need to AND have seemed to have finally pleased the LOML, because now she is bugging me about my computer room instead of the shop.
BTW, toolferone gets the credit for all the good points of the layout.
This all started when I decided to make a large workbench on the back wall of my garage. The original idea was to have a place to indulge my retirement hobbies. Building model sailing ships and building custom computers to sell on eBay. I had a few power tools, a ryobi BT3100 tablesaw, a Rigid 12" Sliding Compund Miter Saw, and a bunch of Rigid Cordless tools. I found an idea for basic construction of the bench in a woodworking magazine and then I modified it for what I thought would be my needs. A bunch of 2x4, 2x6, and 2 solid core doors later, the workbench was done. Then I found a plan for some storage cabinets and a parts cabinet in some other WW mags and suddenly my goals changed. Now I wanted to go beyond basic carpentry and work on something whose scale was 1:1 rather than 1:74(model ships)
.gif "Drogar BigGrin(DBG)")
I made a list of the primary Tools that research told me I would need(or want)
tablesaw
bandsaw
Drill Press
Jointer
Planer
Drum Sander???
Now life and my buying habits started to get me in trouble. As I looked for tools, if I found what I thought I would need at a good price, I would buy it then, even if I didn't need it yet and/or have any place to put it. I started the website. And I began to make trips to FL every 6 weeks because of my mother's increasing dementia. The never seemed to be any time to really get things going.
Tools, boxes of parts, and new gadgets started to stack up on the floor. Every time, I wanted to do something, I had to move all these things around to make room or I just worked in the midst of the clutter.
.gif "Drogar Cry(DBG)")
And all that would make the clutter and dirt even worse. Every project was 10% work and 90% finding things.
Anyway around January of this year, my time commitments eased and the shop crawl moved my schedule up a month. And I reached a point where now I can really do some work.
So the point of all this is to try to share how I started and and where I am now. I have taken various pictures and put them into
an album that when looked at in the order I arranged it, will give you some idea of the progression of the shop creation.
BTW, the shop disaster pictures that I always show, were the result of my trying to maneuver my DeWalt tablesaw and RT combo onto a mobile base that I had built. The saw tipped over knocking me and it into the plywood rack I was building at the same time. Large sheets of plywood were now all over the place, I was trapped under the table saw for a short time. I finally escaped, righted the saw, and moved all the plywood that had landed outside the garage into a haphazard pile
I have not looked at your mess er um shop pics yet but I'm pretty sure it doesnt resemble MY mess[ and yes i mean mess! ] I tell myself that sifting through the crap to find stuff is perfectly normal and is to be enjoyed!
" I get knocked down but I get up again" - Chumbawamba
I 
)
). Now your ready to start woodworking, what is going to be your first project....to mess the shop up again 
Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile 
.gif "Drogar Shock(DBG)")
I know you described the "shop disaster" last month, but it wasn't until I saw the pictures I really figured out what you meant! It looks like a tornado spent a weekend in there playing with the tools! 
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