Set up a wood shop (H-M sacrilege?)

[FliesLikeABrick]

A bit of backstory that explains some of the approach and challenges along the way below:

Our shop building was put in place by the previous owners of our house shortly after they purchased, around 2000-2001. The house is fairly small, and one of the coupleship was a musician -- teacher/instructor, performer with routine travels, some writing and recording at home, etc. They built the shop, a 48x60 pole barn, with the intention of finishing a substantial portion of the footprint as a music studio and office space.

This space is approximately 42x25, with some interesting features:

• Full HVAC, to protect instruments and their tuning from temperature and humidity fluctuations (3 ton heat pump that covers the whole building except the garage)
• The room is out-of-square by design, to reduce echo/improve acoustics
• The ceiling inside the shop is 13' from the ground; perforated sheet metal with blown-in cellulose insulation above
• Only one exterior wall for temperature stability, there is a small tapered walkway off the garage to provide space from another wall and provide one of the wall tapers
• White oak flooring, suspended off the underlying concrete slab on sleeper 2x4s; with double moisture barrier (above and below the concrete)
• All walls are covered in two layers of 0.5" drywall totalling 1" for acoustics (probably glued between layers as well to prevent resonance)
• Insulated exterior-grade steel doors used where this room meets the rest of the building; a double door to the garage plus one to the finished hallway
• All of the interior walls for this room are insulated, along with the exterior walls

Overall, we are absolutely spoiled by the thought and care they put into constructing this building. The couple was a pretty capable set of DIYers, though I did end up replacing most of the electrical work in the building to as I was expanding upon it. Almost all of the work inside the shop was done by them. Regarding electrical, I may post a thread on some electrical work we did in the shop, since it was only had the minimum outlets and lighting needed for light office/musical work.

Ok, with that background done...

The plan was to portion off a segment of the finished studio/office room for a woodshop. The single large finished room was not usable to us for a particular purpose. The goals were to create a woodshop space for dust and noise containment, as my wife has a growing interest in woodworking and furniture repair/restoration. Specific goals and constraints:

• Approximately 30% of the finished room portioned off for the new woodshop space
• At least one of the 3 double windows should be in the woodshop
• There are HVAC return ducts for the studio room, one large and one small. We did not want any of these in the woodshop as it would be too easy to suck dust in
• The woodshop should be adjacent to the garage, so the double door could be used for moving equipment or projects in and out over time
• The woodshop should have a double door of its own, to the remainder of the studio space. This way furniture, tools, or projects could be moved into and out of that space -- whatever its future use might hold
• Somehow protect the nice wood flooring from the abuse it would surely suffer in any kind of shop space, even a woodshop due to the likelihood of using the space for painting, finishing, abrasion from sliding/moving materials, and general clumsiness.
• Build various tables with some material we had collected locally, eventually add cabinets and other storage space, etc

Those goals and constraints created a pretty clear picture of what to do:

• The woodshop would be at the east end of the finished space, because that is where the garage is
• The partitioning wall would be between the 1st and 2nd window along the exterior wall; extend perpendicular from the exterior wall, and meet the tapered wall (that partitions off the garage) ~27 feet away
• The placement of the wall would be determined by the larger HVAC return which is in the garage wall. Not right against the register, but leaving a few feet on the studio side so that shelves or other items could be placed in the newly-formed corner without obstructing airflow. The exact placement of the entire wall was dictated by where the nearest stud was located in this garage-facing wall.
• Ideally we would make no permanent disruptive damage to the floor, HVAC, or walls of the greater room. We would like any wall and flooring to be removable with barely a sign it was ever there - in case us or future owners didn't want a woodshop or otherwise needed to repurpose the space

The first challenge was identifying how to fasten the outer framing of this new wall to the oak floor with minimal damage, as well as the ceiling above.

The first step was moving everything out of this side of the room. With the space afforded to us by this building, we had been collecting free materials and future projects. This particular space is immediately adjacent to the garage, which made it a convenient dumping ground for material without cluttering the garage more than it already was prone to.





We carted home a bunch of framing-grade 2x4s from the local lumberyard. We had learned over time that picking through Home Depot's retail-grade lumber wasn't worth the time and retail experience versus being able to pull our trailer up to the stack in a constructor yard, where all of the lumber is good enough and basically the same price.

At this point we did not yet have a truck, but our long-suffering Civic was fine for pulling a small utility trailer in-town for light duty uses such as this. The same trailer was occasionally used with a rental truck for heavier loads.



Next was laying out the rough opening for the new wall.

• Fastening to the exterior wall was straightforward because there is horizontal framing between the main structure of the building
• The garage-facing wall (and all other interior walls in the building) are sheet metal studs to help with the height. We started with this wall, because the vertical stud in this wall was the singlemost rigid constraint on the new wall placement. We located the exact center of the sheet metal stud and drilled for 1/2" toggle anchors to get the best purchase on the structure of the stud itself.
• On the ceiling we fastened through to the stringers between the roof trusses, with pine boards cut to fill in some features (where the new lumber was clamping the ceiling) formed into the sheet metal
• The floor.... I e-mailed the previous owners to ask about how the floor was set up. They told me about the 2x4 sleepers and their approximate spacing. With a stud finder set to "deep scan" mode, I found areas that maaaybe there were 2x4s between it. Then using my smallest drill bit, probed the area until locating a support. At that point we drilled a pilot hole and fastened the new rough-opening 2x4 down with decking screws. We made as few holes as possible.

This picture below shows the location with regard to the HVAC return and the garage door, leaving some room on either side for furnishings, storage, etc.


With the tedious rough opening decisions and placement done, framing was ... pretty productive and straightforward. We built sections of 8' wall and lifted them into place, then used decking screws to secure the sections into the rough opening.

One thing I struggled with a bit as we were planning this wall.... how do you build a wall over 8' tall without spending a fortune on specialized lumber or using sheet metal studs? I wanted to avoid the sheet metal since this would provide one solid wall we could mount cabinets on eventually. I did not find the clearest answer on the "right" way to do this, but decided to build an 8' wall and then the remaining 5' wall on top of it in the same style.

The biggest problem with that approach is the horizontal "knee" that is formed between the two, I was concerned about rigidity. Not because it is load bearing, it clearly isn't... but because I could picture accidentally rolling a 400 lb table into the wall and not wanting it to buckle... or mounting 1000 lbs of cabinets+contents on the wall and finding that it started tilting inward.

We decided this should be sufficiently solved by:

• Laminating/sistering 2 layers of 2x4s to form vertical posts (from floor to ceiling) around the new doorway separating the woodshop from the remaining room. With the wall sections being installed, this makes 3x the 2x4 thickness in that area
• Drywall, which would be installed eventually on both sides of the wall (at least on the woodshop side for dust containment for now) - should provide a bit more rigidity as well... much like OSB sheathing on houses is ultimately what provides diagonal bracing and rigidity there (not including houses that require explicit diagonal bracing due to local building codes for earthquake, tornado, or other considerations)

On the right side below you can see the 2x 2x4 post. The 3rd was added shortly after when the jackstud for the doorway was put in.


With the framing done, onto drywall. 3/8 drywall is sufficient for this purpose and we didn't really want to hoist thicker sheets up to this ceiling anyway; it really is just dust abatement. If we decide we wanted more soundproofing for the future use of the remaining finished space, we can always put fiberglass insulation batts in the wall before we drywall the other side.





The bottom 10" remaining is a result of the 13' ceiling. I decided I would add a more utilitarian kickplate out of OSB or plywood after we figured out how to cover the floor.

On that note...

 

[FliesLikeABrick]

We considered a bunch of options for how to cover the floor for protection:

• 1/8 HDF/hardboard, but we weren't sure how to keep this attached or keep edges from popping up if it floated
• OSB/plywood.. overkill but its weight would hold it in place
• Vinyl/linoleum flooring adhered to floating... HDF? to help hold the edges down
• Cheap laminate flooring
• Don't, just be careful/not idiots
• Don't... but maybe temporary/ad-hoc floor covering in high-risk or high-traffic areas (commercial carpet tile or plywood, HDF, etc)

Considering all of these options would need an underlayment to allow floating and protect the underlying floor, cheap laminate ended up being the cheapest and most appropriate option. We bought Home Depot's cheapest laminate, I think it was $0.49/sqft. The underlayment we didn't factor into the cost once we realized any of the options would need it.

We removed the remaining trim in the space (some was removed to put the wall in), and vacuumed. We vacuumed again ... super-duper-super cleaned the floor, mopped, dried. We did not want to risk any abrasive dirt/dust/grime being under the underlayment and chewing away at the oak for the years to come. After cleaning, all the flooring work was done in our socks. We cut boards to length in the garage to keep that dust out as well.

This was our first time installing flooring, glad it was something easy and low-risk.




Once we got down to the final 2-3 courses, a lot of time was spent making long tapered cuts due to the out-of-square room.



In the doorway from this space to the remaining space, I made a quick threshold on the router table and table saw. There are of course commercial options for thresholds on laminate flooring, but I wasn't sure if they would need to fasten down into the oak below (they largely do). Instead, I just glued this pine strip down to the laminate and let it float on the oak below.



Now to make the room more useful, tables!

I had picked up these 9ft x 3ft doors from craigslist for free a few months earlier. They are 200+ lbs each, filled with gypsum for fire-rating. Super heavy, very flat -- good tabletops.

We popped the decorative trim/paneling off (glued on), and made basic frames out of 2x4s and OSB.




With some diagonal bracing and a shelf underneath, we had a good pattern and made 3 more of these. The first one shown above and below is pretty much permanently-located



So we started moving some material back into this "new" room


Then we made 2 more of these tables for the woodshop, but put retractable casters on the end. The 4th table was another fixed one with a slightly different frame, being used as a desk in the next room. We bolted a piece of tubing across them to form a treadle bar of sorts, because raising just one caster at a time made the table unstable and imparted a twisting force that I was sure would turn the tables into a rickety mess over time - no matter how sensibly we tried to assemble them.



This gives us 2 heavy tables that can be raised and moved around in a variety of configurations... one 18ft long table; 2 parallel 3 x9 tables; one big 6x9 work surface for larger projects; etc. They are a decent fit for the room as long as we keep the clutter in check.


One of the last considerations was the double door going to the remaining finished space. Double doors are *expensive* new, and I did not see any decent source of used double doors in our area. I opted to make a barn-style door out of OSB and 2x4s, and used some scrap parts for overhead rollers. We had some tubing frame pieces from an old ping pong table that was thrown in the woods in our area by someone and hauled that home with the trailer a few months earlier (to use as parts/material). I also had salvaged some wheels of an old rusted-out grill someone was discarding.

Together those parts were good to use for the overhead rollers - the T-shaped frame is from the folding ping-pong table; and the wheels are on axles made from 3/8 bolts and some bushings I turned on the lathe.



This door swung quite a bit if you pushed on it, in the picture above you can see a chunk of steel bar on the floor to act as a temporary guide.

I made a permanent roller guide out of an old skateboard wheel in ... a childhood box of junk I pulled out of my parents' basement. Surprising no-one.... after buying a house, parents like all the kids' the pre- and post-college junk to get out of their basement and garage.

The metal bracket is scrap from work, with a few bends added so that it can bolt to the new partition wall and sit under the door, instead of attaching to the oak floor




This is mounted so that it is at the rear of the door when closed. It bears against a wedge at the bottom of the door so that the door gets moved slightly towards the plane of the wall. This is to reduce the gap between the wall and door so that dust is less likely to escape during use.



I wanted to further reduce the gap, and prevent dust from escaping easily if the heating or A/C kicked on while the shop was being used at certain times of the year when it might be on. On aliexpress I found a 35 foot roll of fuzzy weather stripping, and attached that to all 4 surfaces where the door can meet the wall. 3 edges on the door, plus one on the door frame above the roller







In some places I added strips of wood to help close the gap so that the fuzz would be compressed slightly, which all worked out pretty well.


If this style of content is interesting to you -- long-form, retroactive writeups; particularly on shop 'infrastructure' instead of conventional projects -- let me know. I am considering writing up one on the electrical work in the shop, but that would be a significant time investment to write.

I think that is it for now, thanks for reading. Please let me know if you have any questions or clarifications!

 

[jwmelvin]

This is fabulous, thank you. I really like some of the details, like the barn-door mounting (and wedge).

Seems like a wonderful room. It imposes some constraints, but provides a great environment.

 

[ConValSam]

Agreed, this is fabulous.

I'd love to see more detailed images of the sliding door hardware. Seems like a super use of found materials (my favorite kind!)

 

[FliesLikeABrick]

I'd love to see more detailed images of the sliding door hardware. Seems like a super use of found materials (my favorite kind!)

Sure! Looking again, I can't recall for sure if I did end up putting a bushing inside the wheels. I think it may just be the plastic wheel (greased) on the unthreaded portion of a 3/8 bolt, with washers to shim it out to the right alignment.

The frame that holds the wheel is just deck-screwed to the frame of the door, with 2 fender washers to keep the heads of the screws from pulling through the thin tubing over time.




The "rail" it rides on is just two layers of 2x4s sistered together to make a continuous 12 foot track, with a strip of OSB to act as a guide for the front edge.

In the track at the top are two blocks screwed in to act as limits/stops for the travel at each end. Additionally, there is a stop (block of 2x4) screwed to the wall at floor height, but that is redundant and more a visual reminder of the pathway so we don't put anything in the way.







nylock nut on the back. If there isn't a bushing, then the positioning of this nut sets the axial preload/play of the wheel on the spindle (bolt)

 

[Eddyde]

Looks like a great job so far, beautiful workspace!
I ran a custom woodworking shop for 20 years, you don't have to go without AC. The way I handled it was to mount a frame over the return air grille to hold a standard 2' Sq air filter. This way you can easily see when the filter is getting loaded up. You simply vacuum it periodically and replace only when it gets worn-out. I even fitted a pre filter arrangement to the window AC in the office. It all worked very well.

 

[mmcmdl]

That place looks better than our " clean room " in at work ! Very inspiring .

 

[Cadillac STS]

Is the other side going to be your metal shop? Good to have them separate so no oil on the wood stuff and no dust on the metal stuff.

 

[FliesLikeABrick]

Is the other side going to be your metal shop? Good to have them separate so no oil on the wood stuff and no dust on the metal stuff.

Metal shop is already in a smaller unfinished portion of the building where there is no flammable construction material (except the framing inside the exterior wall, which does have drywall over it). I don't think I could bring myself to put any heavy equipment on top of this nice floor, regardless of protections. The metal shop will show up when I start writing up a thread on the electrical work (2x 100A subpanels, lots of lighting upgrades, wire trough overhead in the metal shop and garage, quad boxes and per-machine drops where needed, etc)

 

[woodchucker]

nice job. One thing you might want to consider, is finish the door. Put in some cross members glue them using liquid nails to the osb on both sides, and cap off the other side of the door. It will create a torsion box, and will last longer, not rack , and not warp. That door like it is, may warp, the torsion box kind of locks it all in. Otherwise, I wish I had that space. I would love to be above grade and warm.