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I built my workshop in the basement of our home.
Given that it's a ranch-style floor plan, the basement is large. The floor
plan is such that there is a "bay" (14' x 54') that runs underneath all three
bedrooms and both bathrooms. We had earmarked this area as mine while the house was
being built so I had a great place to start. In all honesty, the size of the
basement in this house had a lot to do with us buying that house!
Addendum - we moved to Spring Grove, IL
in February of 2006. All the parts and pieces of the plane went in through
the windows (removable, horizontal sliders) in the "English Basement" walls on
the east side. Tables and tools were dis-assembled, stored and then
re-assembled once in the new basement workshop.
Here's some pictures of the workshop probably 60% complete. The gray workbench on the end has a formica top bought for $15 at a Builder's Square that went out of business. The "quilted" appearing ceiling is actually encapsulated insulation, covering 100% of the ceiling with taped joints again for noise, dust and fumes since the bedrooms are immediately above the workshop. Just to the right of workbench you can see a white blob on the wall - my two exhaust fans. There is one ceiling fan at each end, $15 each on closeout from Menard's. The white on the wall above and left of the window is a three-shelf cabinet I made out of OSB I had left from the walls. There's another one to the right of the window, you can see them better in the after picture. In this image you can see the line-voltage thermostat for my 4000W of electric heat, the switches for the fans and exhaust fans, the intercom ("honey, it's time for dinner"), the phone and the the little black box which is the AM/FM CD player out of a car I sold not too long ago. It's powered by an old battery charger and drives four car stereo speakers I installed in the ceiling in insulation-lined resonance cavities. It sounds great but, I have to keep it down after the kids go to bed. You can also see the double doors I installed, they're weather-stripped with floor sweeps and a threshold again for noise/dust/fumes. One of the doors came out of a dumpster. It had some pretty good scratches on it, but, for a workshop door who cares? I had to actually buy the second one, shame. Other features include the wall itself, which separates the workshop from the rest of the basement. My dad helped me build this last summer when he and my mom were here to visit. This image is of the windows we installed in the wall. These allow one to view the project (or me to watch the kids) without allowing dust and fumes into the rest of the basement. Those (do you sense a trend here - I'm definitely a builder on a budget) I got for free out of a dumpster in the neighborhood next to mine. Here are some "after" pictures. I think I might have overdone it, but I'll let you be the judge. In this image you can see some of the tools I've managed to collect over the last few years, compressor, belt sander and a drill press. The drill press is actually a workbench model I turned into a floor model with a custom stand made out of 2x4's and a couple pieces of OSB plywood. The 9/27 and centerline stripes are just for fun, although pretty accurate according to my compass. Every time someone came into the shop (because it's long and skinny) they said it looked like a runway so I labeled it like one. The fiberglass rack can be seen in this picture along the left-hand wall. To paint the workshop, I emptied the workshop and used a Wagner power painter to paint the ceiling. The walls I had to roll, OSB is too rougn to power paint well. Many friends of mine have tried power painter and had little luck, I managed to get it to work by using a ton of latex paint conditioner, basically a half gallon of paint conditioner for every gallon of paint sprayed. It got the job done quick (I'd have hated to paint the ceiling with a brush with all those pipes and etc. in there) but made quite a mess and cleanup is not easy. The concrete walls we painted with basement paint with a brush and we rolled the floor. Here's a shot of the other end of the workshop. Yes, this picture was taken some time after I redid it, hence a fuselage complete through part of Chapter 9.
I think the only other significant thing I did to the shop was the lighting. The shop has eight, 4', 2-tube fluorescents. I installed those when I did the rest of the lighting in the basement, 19 fixtures and five new circuits in all. They work great, it's nice and bright throughout the shop - and the whole basement for that matter!
We moved in February of 2006. All that hard work put into the workshop - yep - all for naught. It's ok, though, 'cause I actually have more space in my new workshop. Another shot of the new workshop. Still in progress in this picture, though, the lighting is in but I don't see the power plugs I added on the left side of this image nor the new hot box I added.
Here's some pictures of the workshop probably 60% complete. The gray workbench on the end has a formica top bought for $15 at a Builder's Square that went out of business. The "quilted" appearing ceiling is actually encapsulated insulation, covering 100% of the ceiling with taped joints again for noise, dust and fumes since the bedrooms are immediately above the workshop. Just to the right of workbench you can see a white blob on the wall - my two exhaust fans. There is one ceiling fan at each end, $15 each on closeout from Menard's. The white on the wall above and left of the window is a three-shelf cabinet I made out of OSB I had left from the walls. There's another one to the right of the window, you can see them better in the after picture.
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