Need ideas for new shop floor, ceiling and walls.

[red]

Hey All,

I will be starting a new house and workshop build in the very near future. I am looking to see what you did for flooring and what you did on your walls/ceiling in the workshop. Here is the plan so far;

I am building a 26' x 36' shop with 10'+ ceiling height. It will be on a crawl space so it will have a 3/4" subfloor of AdvanTech. Should I put something over this or is this enough?

As for the walls and ceiling, what kind of covering did you use? Sheetrock doesn't seem like a good choice. OSB, T&G pine are some thoughts.

I've had basement workshops on concrete slabs (my last 4 houses) my entire life and I am finally coming above ground. I want to do it right since I will be in this house a long time. So any thoughts or recommendations are greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Red

 

[MarkE]

My shop is on a crawl space and has 3/4" Advantech floor with rubber interlocking floor mats. Very comfortable to walk and stand on and easy to re-configure if machine placement changes.
Walls and ceiling are osb painted white.

 

[Dee2]

Place in wilmington that posts on CL has T&G pine seconds. I bought a bundle for the shop walls. Also found some closeout on LL flooring (check the local store listings near your zip code - an easy search from the LL web page) and found some 1/2 oak engineered flooring that I used on one wall.

I believe the finished oak was <$1.00 sq.ft. The T&G Pine was also very reasonable (,$2.50/board? ) but it was seconds. Had enough of the pine left to put up french cleats and cleats and some to spare.

OBTW, 20X24X10 are the shop dimensions.

While I was scrounging, I went to Big Blue and found a gallon of returned paint for <1/2 full price. Thinned it and put a wash coat on all the tongues and groves before installing. A wash coat was all I wanted. Finished the surface with the same wash coat after installing.

I like it. YMMV.

For flooring, I have a piece of horse stall mat in front of the lathe. Everything else is concrete. Tractor Supply has the mat on sale once a year. I keep threatening to layer the garage floor with it to keep the car's and truck's shoes off the concrete when they spend the night inside.

 

[Bill Clemmons]

Red, my shop is on a crawl space. For the walls, I used 1/2" A/C plywood. That allows me to attach anything, anywhere without worrying about using sheet rock anchors. And I hang a lot of stuff on the walls. Here is what I would do different if I could start over: I would put a washcoat of white paint on the walls just to lighten them a bit and make it brighter in the shop.

For the floor, I started w/ 3/4" T&G, 4x8 plywood/OSB flooring. Pretty standard. Then I laid down a layer of 30 lb. roofing felt, going north/south. Then I laid down another layer going east/west. The double layer of felt helps insulate the floor, as well as provide some cushioning. The building inspector suggested this, and I'm glad he did. Finally, I put down 4x8 sheets of 7/16" OSB and painted it w/ a standard floor paint from the BORG. I have a number of cushioned floor mats around the shop at various work stations. If I had it to do over again I might go w/ 1/2" A/C plywood instead of the 7/16" OSB. The OSB tends to flake over time and chips come up. Not a structural problem, just cosmetic.

Shop pics if you want to look around. You can catch glimpses of the wall, floor, and some work stations.

 

[cyclopentadiene]

Slat wall is a nice addition. The various metal shelves, baskets and hooks are readily available on the secondary market for pennies on the dollar.

 

[ScottM]

I have a 22x32 detached shop. The floor is a concrete slab. I used 3/4 OSB on the walls and ceiling. Even installed with smooth side out it took 3 coats of paint. Painting walls and ceiling white makes a very big difference.

 

[williv]

Hi Red,

I'm in the process of building my shop now. It's over a crawl space. The sub-floor is Advantech and I'm just now laying the floor using 7/8" inch wide pine boards(not tongue in groove). I'm screwing the boards down and will peg the holes. I know it's a lot of work, but I'm sort of hard-headed that way. The ceiling, and 3 walls are plywood that I cut into various lengths and stained/painted to simulate old barn wood(couldn't afford old barn wood). It turned out quite nicely and was a lot of work, but, like I said before, I'm hard-headed. One wall, the back wall that attaches to the garage is t1-11 that I just painted white. My wife insisted on this since I was killing myself cutting/staining/painting/nailing the plywood boards. It was a lot faster.

 

[Mike Wilkins]

Concrete slab floor, so mats in high work areas is it for me.
As for walls, get some insulation between the studs before sealing the walls with whatever you decide. I did not and had a real blast removing racks, cabinets, and lots of 'stuff' to get some insulation in. I screwed 1/4" OSB on the studs, so it was easy to remove them for insulation and then prime/paint. Makes a real difference in the looks of the place. And I can still find the stud locations for cabinet mounting to the studs for strength.
Good luck and watch those fingers.

 

[Michael Mathews]

Concrete floor with Barricade floor panels as my final top. ( http://barricadesubfloor.com/barricade-subfloor.html ). Multiple coats of Polyurethane over that to seal it. Only complaint about not painting the floor is if you drop a screw or nail, good luck finding it! Ceiling is Drywall and the wall are painted OSB.

 

[bobsmodels]

Hi
I built a 30 x 60 shop in 2005 in NW Illinois. It is a pole building with an insulatedreinforced concrete floor 5” thick, no windows. There is 6” insulation in the walls and 18” in the ceiling. There are four rooms. Ceiling height is 10’. All walls and ceiling were covered with ½”(not 7/16”) lumber yard exterior press board (not box store, there was a bigdifference). Plywood was reallyexpensive at the time. All walls and ceilingswere painted white. The floor waspainted with Tile Red. The reason forthe floor color was to create a contrast with the walls. It is easy on the eyes and believe it or notthe tile color makes it easier to see something small you dropped on thefloor. I do a lot of metal working andsmall screws etc are more easily found. Iused a free lighting program to figure out how much light I needed and where toplace the basic lighting.

Bob

 

[Ray Morgan]

Hey Red. Sorry to loss a neighbor but best wishes with your new home and shop built. I'm sure you will enjoy having your shop outside of the house. On my shop build I used 3/4 advantech as the sub floor and blocked on 4 ft centers between the joist to pick up the t and g for support. Think rolling heavy loads on small wheels. Then 30 lb felt and topped with syp 6 in wide flooring. The finish is slick but cleans well and allows sliding furniture ect with out picking up. Not only does the floor look great but is easy to stand on for extended periods compared to concrete. If you want to check it out sometime just pm me. Enjoyed my visit to your last shop. Ray

 

[red]

Thanks for all the replies. Keep them coming if you have more. I like the idea of using the 1/2" lumberyard OSB for the walls. My other choice would be using T&G pine but I don't like that look painted, only as natural. Finished floor over the 3/4" advantech I still don't know what to do. I need to go back and read the posts again. The house and workshop plans are in the drawing up stage so I have a little more time before its penciled into the prints.

Red

 

[red]

Hi
I used a free lighting program to figure out how much light I needed and where to place the basic lighting.

Bob

Do you have a link to the site you used? Sounds interesting. Thanks.

Red

 

[Rick M]

My shop has plywood floors and 1x6 pine walls. If I ever build a new one I'd like thick 1.5" floors topped with maple flooring or maybe commercial vinyl tile (or whatever that stuff is made of). I like the pine walls and would stick with that or probably go with painted OSB to reduce cost. And lighting out the Ying Yang.

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[Joe Scharle]

I like white pegboard. Had it in my shop before moving to NC.

 

[dwminnich]

Regardless of what you decide to cover the walls, you may want to think about running a French cleat around all/part of the perimeter. Someone mentioned a slat wall system...a less expensive (and in my mind, more flexible system) is shown in the pics below. Basically, hang a sheet of plywood on the wall using a French cleat. Said plywood is itself covered with rows of small cleats, and you can then make whatever tool holders/mounts you want and position them freely. I use 1x4 syp for my large cleats, and cut the small cleats out of 1/2" Baltic birch. The best thing about this system is the flexibility... If you decide you need to move something it's trivial to do so since nothing is permanently attached except the cleat on the wall.

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[red]

Some great info. I think the direction I'm headed is to insulate and sheetrock the entire workshop since this is already in the builders sq ft price. I will add a wainscot 5' or so high to give the walls some protection. Run the electrical on the outside of the walls so I can place it once I know my shop layout and it's easy to add or remove outlets afterwards if my needs change. Still haven't decided on what flooring to do over the advantech subfloor. If you have more to add, please do. Not everything is set in stone. Thanks.

Red

 

[redknife]

I've been looking at vinyl plank flooring for another application. Seems pretty durable (see examples in hospital), would vacuum or sweep easily, machines would roll well. Its fairly cheap per sq ft. I would add 1/2" ac plywood over the advant h in that situation. The vinyl does not require an underlayment.

 

[Bas]

As convenient as OSB (or any other type of wood) walls are, sheetrock is hard to beat in terms of cost and ease of painting. I used to have open racks and pegboard on the wall, which was convenient as far as storage, but I'm moving towards having everything in cabinets. Why? Anything not in a cabinet gets caked in a layer of dust after a while. And for hanging cabinets all you need is a french cleat.

Surface mounted conduit is useful since it allows you to make changes afterward. But...bending conduit, like cutting dovetails, is a craft all by itself, and metal surface mount boxes, conduit, and connectors add up rapidly (PVC is even more expensive). Consider cutting a narrow "trench" in the drywall, run conventional Romex through the studs, and close it up again. Some tape, mud, and paint, and it'll be invisible. I did surface mount, and while I'm happy with the result, if I had to do it all over again I would have put it inside the wall.

Don't get too hung up on flexibility. Just put four 20A 120V outlets every 4 feet (on separate circuits), that covers all the basics. Then run your 220V outlets for table saw, dust collector etc. where you think you'll want them. If you need to put a 220V 20A or 30A somewhere else later, you can always run a piece of conduit just for that. But now you can go with 1/2", and you're not trying to pull 8 wires around a 90 degree corner.

On the flooring - the Barricade stuff is really, really nice, and super durable. I went with a cheap laminate, which has worked well, but it'll probably need to be replaced in 10 years or so.

 

[Charlie]

I'm with Bas on most things.

My shop is 28 x 36 w/ 8' ceilings. I have yet to hit the ceiling or lights with anything in 25 years.
I haven't built anything 8' tall because you couldn't get it in most homes in one piece anyway.

Everything in cabinets. So much easier to keep clean.

Sheetrock on walls and ceiling, painted w/semi-gloss off white. Easy to keep clean and shop is so much brighter. All cabinets and most equipment is painted almond/off white. Have yet to damage any sheetrock as most wall space is covered with cabinets/equipment.

Electrical in the wall before sheetrock. All 4 walls have 110V outlets ever 4', 220V every 8'. I have never had any reason to modify. Each wall has a separate circuit for 110V and a separate circuit 220V. I am on a crawl space, from 3 1/2' to 6' high. All electrical for stationary equipment is under the floor. No exposed wiring or drop cords. I didn't insulate the floor to allow ease of changing wiring as required. (My equipment layout has continually "evolved" over the past 25 years). Temperature in the crawl space never gets below 55 degrees.

Floor is 3/4" T&G on 2x10 joists on 16" centers. There are 3 main beams (4- 2x10) running the 36' dimension sitting on block piers about every 7'. All floor joists are less than 7' long. No floor bounce. I put 2 layers of 30# felt on top of the T&G and then a layer of 5/8 pressed wood. This was before OSB was even heard of. The pressed wood I used has really fine particles and has a smooth surface. I applied 2 coats of Varathane varnish (used on gym floors) and haven't touched it in 25 years. Other than a few war scores it looks great today. I have rubber tile mats covering all work areas for comfort.

There are many shop photos in my gallery. If you would like to see my shop first hand, send me a PM and we can set up a time.