For 20+ years, no car has seen the inside of my garage. This space has been home to Morgen Woodwork and it's where the fun happens! Working in 440 square feet of space can be a real challenge. Through the years I've made a number of adaptations. I'll try to share some of them here.



I've packed a lot into the space. I have a full compliment of tools, including a 52" SawStop Tablesaw, Powermatic 8" Jointer and 15" Planer, Delta Radial Arm Saw, Mortiser, Floor Standing Laser Drill Press, 18-36 Drum Sander, Jess-um Router Table, 6' bench, Shapeoko XXL CNC Router, Oneida Cyclone air system, Porter Cable Laser Miter Saw, PC Pancake compressor, several routers and hand tools, and plenty of light, clamps, and storage. I have an LG Split unit for A/C and heat pump to supplement the baseboard heating.

The heart of the shop is the SawStop Tablesaw. I built front and back shelving units around the saw to hold "stuff" and the back doubles as my outfeed table. I incorporated a Corian offcut into the outfeed table to give me a dead flat surface to use for assembly and glue doesn't stick to it.




Building out a long bench around both sides of my Radial Arm Saw allowed me to share the fence across both the Radial and the Chop saw. Then, I added a flip up platform for the Mortiser to allow it to share the space, but get out of the way when I'm working with wide or thick planks.



Then, I added small storage areas for small power tools and a Sanding Station at the end of run.



The Shapeoko XXL is a new addition to the shop. I'm starting to get the hang of using it, and am quite happy with its performance, though it's a lot of space to dedicate in such a small shop.



To maximize space, I created a rolling tower of small tools, each mounted onto its own board, that are sized to clamp onto a rolling stand. This gives me a lot of flexibility in a small space.


A clamp storage area, a Router Table and my bench round out the far side wall.



I found stock storage to be a real footprint hog, so I built a small rack on the wall over the Radial for stock that needs to acclimate to the shop. For the remainder, as well as for sheet goods, I built a freestanding woodshed at the side of the garage. It has large sliding doors to get up to 14' boards and sheets inside, as well as a side entrance for up to 4' offcuts.




The sheet good caddy rolls out to give you access to LOTS of rackspace! Plus, lights make it easy to see what's what.



Well, that's my space! Someday, I'll build a 1000+ square ft shop and live the dream...but for now, my little 440 square ft shop gives me all I need: A comfortable place to work, room to move around, dedicated space, and freedom to create! Maybe I won't build that 1000 ft shop, afterall :)

You can email Gary at gary@morgenwoodwork.com. You can also visit his website at http://www.morgenwoodwork.com/.