Creating your own Workshop Part 5 - Developing your Plan

Welcome to  the Workshop Series brought to you by

 Funky Junk Interiors and Mustard Seed Creations!

 Today Miss Mustard Seed is leading Part 5 of her decorative painting seminar. She's going to show you where to find inspiration so you know just the right touches a piece needs in order to shine! And she has an amazing before and after Goodwill lamp as the perfect example. Wait till you see what she's done!

First, let's get started with Funky Junk's series,

Creating your own Workshop

Entire series to date  HERE

1. Pick your spot.

2. Purge (with goofy purge video)

3. Determine your needs. 

4. Search for inspiration and ideas (with goofy thrift store video)

5. Develop your plan

6. Go shopping

7. Install

#5. Developing your plan

Sorry, no goofy video this week. :) Videozone resumes next week again when you get to see me wrap a fancy dancy cord. :) (you could always catch a rerun listed up above if you're totally devastated) Instead, how about a TON of pictures?

It's finally time to have some real productive fun now! Here's where you're going to mentally take all that inspiration and implement your ideas.

We all have different areas with different needs. Due to that, I thought what may be most helpful here is to show you the pros and cons on how I've managed to make my own space work. Warning: these pics aren't very decorator pretty, but should be informative.

Tips on setting up:

1. Cabinets

2. Tool storage

3. Lighting

4. Heat

5. Wall mounting

6. Wood storage

7. Paint storage
8. Spray booth idea

1. Cabinets

The cabinets I have are price efficient melamine, uppers only. Reason for just uppers? I wanted all the lower areas to be removable to maximize mobility and space.

Note the cabinets are placed at the far end of the garage. This is out of truck parking range, which still leaves me a choice to park inside the garage.

The lowers you see here are two loose bases with a board on top. So many advantages here, but the biggest would be, you can create any size top you wish!

If you wish to have some lower cabinet storage, mobile gives you more options.

2. Tool Storage

I realize everyone and their dog has a metal tool chest. But honestly, I don't get it. I'm grateful to have it, however it frustrates me to no end that I can't see inside the drawers. (I can label, but I'd rather SEE, not read) Inventors, heed my advice! Create clear drawer fronts! The unit is ultra sturdy, and does what it's suppose to, however in a perfect world, I'd prefer an open shelving system with different sized bins.

Sort of like this one found at Costco. Except the bins should have clear lids to keep sanding dust out. There's always something!

I have an empty thread cabinet sitting here. Any takers? I prefer keeping nails and screws in their original boxes inside one big box. That way I can grab the one big box and carry the works to my project, not 100 fiddly drawers that can tip when transported.

Pegboard is your best friend in tool country! LOVE this stuff. You can see your stuff and change your mind 101 times a day. To install pegboard, you need to screw on strips of wood behind the pegboard in order to create the space needed for hooks. But it is very easy to cut and customize.

3. Lighting

Take note of your light overhead before you set up work stations. See how the open garage door eats up a bunch of ceiling space? That end of the garage is always dim.

Here's how the lights are set up on the other end of the garage. They're placed for side tasking areas yet amazingly enough, still throw out tons of light centrally. Task lighting is still a good idea and easy to add. A simple lamp will do the trick.

4. Heat

An el cheapo baseboard heater was installed along one wall. This thing heats up the single car garage beautifully! There are other heating options out there, however baseboard is safe around fumes and is quiet to run. I've had large plug in heaters, and although noisy and less efficient, they might be a better choice if no wall space is avail.

5. Mounting

In order to mount heavy stuff, you need to ensure you're hitting studs in the walls for support. What my past carpenter did was, he'd screw (always screw, not nail) boards horizontally in desired areas, attaching to the studs, leaving you with loads of hanging options. This is a quick fast easy way to hang most anywhere in any weight. You can also make the boards disappear by painting them out with the same wall colour. I just sort of forgot about mine over time. :)

See that fancy yellow cord? I'm going to show you how to do that next week.

Here's a closer shot of how boards were mounted in between the shelving brackets. Anywhere on that board is free game for mounting hooks!

Place your support boards two deep and you can have more hanging options. This zig zag positioning nearly doubles up your storage space for long handled objects.

Wood Storage

You'll need a place to store wood vertically, and a quick fix is behind a work table. Boards stacked like this take up very little room and still allow a working area in front of them. Space efficient to the max!

For the REALLY long stuff, I have some running from shelf to shelf above head height.

These shallow shelves allow for heavier larger storage below, and smaller boards above.

Paint Storage

Don't forget to think UP. This shelf is near the ceiling (allowing 2 cans to stack) to maximize head space below. The final reveal will show you the entire shelf as this is only half of it.

Spray booth

If you spray paint anything, you already know what a mess over spray can make. Here Miss Mustard Seed shows us how she's set up a makeshift spray booth in her own basement. I've also heard of this done with shower curtains as well. I'll be trying to do something similar in the future with my own space.

Me - "So Miss Mustard Seed, do you have any setup tips to add that has worked well for you? Anything you plan to do differently than how you have it now?"

MMS - “I am a huge fan of open shelving and peg board as well. I like everything to be organized, visible and accessible. We have big plans for our workshop area. My husband recently acquired a large table saw, band saw, and drill press, so we need to rearrange the shop to work around these larger tools. Improved lumber storage will be in the works as well. We’re also planning to build a spray room with a ventilation system for my spraying.

Me - "That sounds awesome! I can't wait to check out how you'll do the spray room. Any other tips to add misc. wise?"

 MMS - "I think one of the best tips I can share is to make clean-up a part of the project. You’re not finished until you put your tools and paint back where they belong. Once you spend time to find a home for everything that works for you, keep it that way. This will save you a lot of time and frustration in the future. “

Me - "I totally agree! Why throw all your hard work away by not keeping up? The end result is having to do it over again. The workshop requires regular housework too. Every so often, doing a deeper cleaning will help you stay ahead of the having-to-gut game."

Next time?

6. Shopping

7. Install

However...

We've actually already covered #6 and #7 in previous posts, so I'll only lightly recap on them, and bring you some other added tips. I'll also show you a video on how to do up that fancy cord wrapping trick you spotted in a pic, as well as another variation.

If there's anything else you'd like covered during this seminar, now's your chance to let me know, because the following week after that, is...

THE BEFORE AND AFTER LINK PARTY! Whoohoo!

Wed Feb 24

There ya have it! 2 more weeks!

Your turn!

In comments, let's hear...

Is there anything else you'd like to touch on before this session is a wrap?

Have any tips of your own to add on the setting up topic?

Wanna prove to me what's so great about a metal tool chest?!? :)

Will 2 weeks be enough time for YOUR reveal?

After your comments, head on over to Mustard Seed Creations and enjoy what she's created especially for today's workshop. Wow...

 
<center><a href="http://www.funkyjunkinteriors.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="Funky Junk's Workshop Series" src="http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b243/signmakergirl/fjiworkshop150.jpg"/></a></center> Only 2 more weeks! Will you be ready?