Your homestead workshop/shed situation

I got some encouragement for starting this thread from Permies member John McDoodle.

First off, I’ll mention that in North America I’ve seldom if ever seen a homestead that didn’t have a sheltered “shop” of some sort.  Some people call them “tool sheds” or just "the garage" – but, by whatever name, the function is similar.  There is a never-ending string of make-it, fix-it, and maintain-it tasks on a country place, and for many people in city or suburb.

I’d love to have a single enclosed space of maybe 16x24 feet that could be warmed during winter.  A place that would accommodate my tools (human-powered hand tools, corded and battery portable tools, and stationary electric tools.  What I do have is a wood/handyman/bench-carpentry area (part of my house’s basement, about 200 sq ft) heated in winter.  My metalworking area (roughly the same amount of floor space, behind the barn) is unheated in winter - although the situation allows for simple ventilation of fumes.  I’ve arranged good lighting in these two areas.  I also have an unheated shed where my lumber and tablesaw are sheltered.

I do most of my small-engine work back of the barn in my metalworking area.  Pic uploads only allow for three shots, but what I've put here gives some idea.

My challenge: the table saw & lumber shed sit 30 ft from the stairs down to my basement.  But both the basement stairs and the tablesaw/lumber shed are over 100 ft from where I can do the main metal work.  As most every handyman knows, there are frequent cross-over tasks  –  say, involving wood, metal, and electrical wiring.  I haven’t built even a modest shop building mainly due to our tight budgeting here, but I do like to conceive possible layouts.

Anyhow, it’d be great to learn what others here are doing for a workshop.  Especially if you live with portions of the year characterized by cold and precipitation.  (Pictures would make things clearer... but don't hold back.)

There is also a building category in the forums.  I work out of an old quaint pole barn with a dirt floor.   The building is older than I am, but it has a fairly recent modern garage door installed on the front.   Inside is a complete mess right now and it's unheated / uninsulated.   I love spending time building and creating out in the work-shop, and that's where my first rocket stove was born.     I think every create person needs a space to create and same goes with artists and mechanics and wood craftsman.   I personally rely on my hands and tools because I cannot afford the things that I build and fix.   The car I fixed up, I couldn't afford to buy from a dealer.  So I fixed up one myself.  The wire stripper machine I built, would have cost thousands for a similar industrial unit, but I built one myself.   I couldn't afford a boat so I built one outside, but I moved it inside for the painting process and such.  

I enjoy being able to move around the shop and open the doors on a vehicle if one were inside, but any workshop is better than no workshop.  

On a budget, I've seen guys build supports and steel roofs on shipping containers and temporary car shelters, but as far as safe winter heat, the shipping containers are better, alothough often more expensive than the former.   Shipping containers can be spaced apart and a roof can be built to bridge the gap, creating a large car-port or large garage when closed in, similarly they can be placed tight together but it's less efficient at creating a large shop.   Spacing them apart will create a larger structure and provide something to build a roof onto

Looks pretty good, John.  I understand though from what you've said, that it's unheated - and I know what that means up here in Canada.  Any plans to insulate and add a heat source, etc?

My lack of a spacious covered and heated assembly area means that there are larger projects, whether primarily wood or metal, that I don't work with for about three months of the year, if not more.  But on the positive end of things: the pics I uploaded didn't show another couple angles on my 'back of barn' area.  I've got a compressor for air tools & a sandblaster in there, and I've got my MIG welder there too.

 

No heating plans right now for the workshop, but you never know what the future holds.   I'd love an insulated workshop with heat but it's not a priority right now.   If I owned the property it might be a different case.   I rent here from my boss so I don't want to spend what little resources I have on somebody else's property.   Someday I will have my own property hopefully, but for now this is where I work.   I'm no stranger to working out in the cold and snow, I just spend less time outside in the winter.   However I really enjoy building and finding and creating, working with my hands.   Learning hands on and such.  

I have a few areas.

I have a "shop" that is wayyyyy too small, maybe 9 x 13 that pretty much just houses my tools, but it too will soon be taken over and used as an office.

Another area is a 13 x 22 garage that does well for wood working. Its not heated, but covered and I do a lot of woodworking there. Right now I park my log trailer in there just to keep it out of the snow.

I also have a 8 x 12 area that is for my steel working tools. Its a handy place to store gas and oil cans and stuff for the equipment.

And then there is a spot in my barn. I can park my bulldozer in there out of the snow, so I do and that is where I keep some fuel and oil stuff related to my bulldozer.

I am not ready for this yet, but at some point I want to build a garage just for my bulldozers. I want a stair way leading down into a pit where I can stand up because a lot of the maintenance on a bulldozer is on its tracks, and its track system has an inner and outer side. It would be nice to get to the inside and not have to crawl on my back as a bulldozer is slung real low to the ground.

I got nothin' 😔
OK, not really.
My basement was to be mine,but you know how that goes.
I have to go up one flight of stairs and down another to get to it,so I want invest in a stand alone shop.
My father in law lives next door.
He has a three car garage,that hasn't has a car in it for 20plus years...
Great place to scroung tools and materials,but ultimately a wasted space. His space, his rules, gotta give him his propers.
He let me use his paved backyard,which is great,but I'm ashamed to say things some times get unloaded from the van and don't make it to the basement. Not cool on my part- I need my own place to dump tools and such.

I have a property around the corner that I want to put a pit and carport on. I just did all the plugs and wires on a Chevy Astro, what a pain. I lucked into a warmish dry day for it, other wise it would yet be undone.

I have a boneyard at that yarden but it needs racks for lumber and pipes,etc, and a simple roof.
Right now old fencing hides it from the neighbors, and old pallets keep materials out of the dirt, but with better organization I could get more done.

I'm waysoff from a good work shop, but I build in iterations,so it's cool. I look at the one workshop that I do have set up nicely and I have hope.
I'm referring to my kitchen. Gotta eat, so it has gotten the most attention,with a place for everything an on a good day, everything in its place.
And yet I'm still working on it 😤

Travis, William I can picture the difficulties.

I shouldn't complain... at least I can do some smallish handyman stuff in my basement during winter.  I just cut a few pieces of wood for about 15 minutes yesterday, out in my covered but open-air big shed.  Hadn't started the tablesaw for six weeks at least.  The motor didn't want to turn at all.  Played it smart and kept at it, never leaving the "on" position for more than about three seconds, and turning the blade manually with a push stick (it did not want to spin!)  Finally, after hand-holding for about five attempted starts, if did start to go, and then was turning high-rpm after maybe 20 seconds after that.  But it's a drag... oh, well.

Travis, how much snow do you get in winter?

Not a lot. Maybe 70 inches total.

This year seems to be a big snow year. We got 18 inches on the ground now and another 20 inches coming tonight, so there will be a fair amount in the woods come Tuesday. That is where that 8 x 12 shed comes in for metal working. Sometimes you need to find pieces of steel and it is hard when it is buried under 2 feet of snow.

Our goal is to convert that 13 x 22 single car garage into a heated, year around workshop. We sell some homegoods that we make off the wood that grows on the farm, but honestly it is not enough money to invest into a building right now. Other priorities you know. But we also build our own buildings, including our house so we are always doing carpentry. A lot of times that is done in the winter, but I have a great wife, if it is too cold I set up sawhorses in the kitchen and go to work building this or that.

Travis Johnson wrote:not enough money to invest into a building right now. Other priorities you know. But we also build our own buildings, including our house so we are always doing carpentry. A lot of times that is done in the winter, but I have a great wife, if it is too cold I set up sawhorses in the kitchen and go to work building this or that.

My partner is great too.  But she doesn't like any trace of sawdust in the house.  So I never cut wood down in the basement with any larger tool than my jigsaw.  With financial constraints, my poor tablesaw is out in the unheated shed, frozen in winter. ''

Here's my shop been working in at the moment



It's 46x26ft with 12 foot walls. 8x8 timbers almost every stick was cut on my sawmill.  Except the trusses.  Currently we're living in the shop while I finish the house.  
My shop has a greenhouse attached in the south wall 46x12 greenhouse.   On the North side is my barn/chicken coop, generator, and battery room.  Going to build a 8x8 roll door there also for equipment storage.  I'll do a shop tour via video very soon.  At the moment just have shop improvements.

Nice, Byron.  Thanks for posting it.  I went on Youtube and watched the next one too.  The shop is really coming along.

The high ceiling will be great for larger projects.  Just wondering, though – since you're pretty far north with very cold winter temps sometimes, won't the heat rise quite a lot and mean that more fuel consumption is required to keep your temps nearer to the floor warm enough?  Maybe, since you have the sawmill, you've got so much scrap and slab that it's not really an issue?

Yeah, I do wish I had all my tools in one building, plus enough space for larger projects in a winter-heated shelter!

Heating is not a issue.  I made sure I paid attention while doing the log work so there sealed well.  I also blew in R40 in the ceiling.  It was - 20 here this morning and we burned about a wheel barrow load of wood over the last 24 hours.  Insulation is always the key.  We're currently heating the whole shop with my woodcook stove.  Which will get moved to house when we finish.  We're living comfortably in winter temps in the shop.   Keep in mind we're also using that wheel barrow load in the cook stove to heat our hot water, cook/bake, space heating and even with the top cook plate off I BBQ moose back straps for a treat.  Over the coals.  Haven't fired up a BBQ for years.  My cookstove is another topic altogether.

I feel having the two lean to's on the shop help a lot.  The greenhouse adds a lot of a tempered environment on the south side obviously.  The North lean too adds shelter from the north prevailing wind.  

At minute 00.52 I demo the benefit of having a attached greenhouse and how it's performing at -35c.  This protecting the 12ft high x 46ft wall.   Not only does it provide food double timing it and gettig btu's all winter, makes the invest into the greenhouse worth while.  That's a huge passive return.  Even if I never plant another 🌱 in the greenhouse, that greenhouse will pay me back for the rest of my life in the climate we live in.



The animals in the barn benefit being attached to the shop and the shop benefits from the animals.  I haven't supplemented any heat to them this winter.     Coldest we seen this winter -45c.  That's without a windchill.  



I need to  enclose the North lean too and insulate it yet but at the moment it's acting like a wind breaker, but once done it will be more like a down jacket on the North wall protecting the logs.  Coverage there again will 12x46 ft of wall.  I should do a video for yah. Stay tuned on that one!

The high ceiling and big workshop is very usable.  I can park both our main vehicles plus my skid steer inside all winter plus have room for projects.   No need to start a generator at -40c to start a car.  My vehicles remain warm comfortable and ready to go.  Plus saving wear and tear on them not to mention idling for warm up.  Saving me even more money 💰 long term.  I invested a lot into my shop as it's the heart ❤️ of the property so to say.  I did a lot of thinking on how it'll all work.  I wanted a place we're I can tool up and work there supplementing my income.  I wanted a place to go be creative play and experiment.   I have even built a 16x18 ft cabin in the bay one winter!   A place to house the generator and batteries for our Offgrid system.  A place to skin animals I'm a trapper, and butcher livestock.  Our greenhouse provides a lot of fresh groceries a rarity in the north.  

https://permies.com/mobile/t/54975/ft-greenhouse-Yukon

My wife and I decided to build the shop first.  Get a roof over our heads.  Next stage was power system.  Upgrade solar and generator system.  Get food production going barn and greenhouse build.  Then start the house while we have cash coming.  We're building everything totally mortgage free!  The shop allows me a real nice work area to do the house and such.  We're in no rush I figure about a ten year term we will be finished here on the property no mortgage no bills no interest payments.  True freedom.   Not bad for living in my workshop and building as I go.  It all starts with one tooled out area dry warm and comfortable.

At the moment I have a small metal shed that came as a kit. Really small but it holds my bikes and a few supplies n tools. I also have an even smaller old well house that no longer has a well in it but functions for storing things like pots and t-posts. I'm hoping to build a nice 200+ square foot shed in a year or two and eventually a green house. Together that should meet my needs.

Daron Williams wrote:At the moment I have a small metal shed that came as a kit. Really small but it holds my bikes and a few supplies n tools. I also have an even smaller old well house that no longer has a well in it but functions for storing things like pots and t-posts. I'm hoping to build a nice 200+ square foot shed in a year or two and eventually a green house. Together that should meet my needs.

I've seen some situations where people did a lot with a 200+ sq ft shed.  Good luck with the building.


Byron, how will you power your equipment in the shop when everything is basically set up?  I know you have that battery-powered MIG spool-gun rig.  And looks like you had a generator hooked up to your wood gasifier.  Do you foresee a possibility to generate enough current to run larger 120v power tools (tablesaw, etc)?

This is something worth telling people about, if they use propane, acetylene, or other air-fuel or oxy-fuel torches.  I’d have posted in the Gear forum here on Permies, but I wasn’t too sure that people who can make use of it would come across it there… better here in the “Shops” thread, maybe.

I use torches in my shop and in other applications - everything from thawing frozen pipes and things, to lighting outdoor scrap piles, to bending or cutting steel, brazing, etc.   Like pretty well everyone, I habitually lit any torch I have (ones that don’t have a built-in igniter) with a conventional flint “striker” or “sparker”.  But they’re fussy, and too often I’ve had to twist the flint around 90* or so, or replace a worn down flint.

This little device (costs under $20) just works very easily every time, and the manufacturer promises tens of thousands of ignitions.  I’ve found it to be safe to use with my torches, too.  Amazon sells it and I think many other places do too.

Byron, how will you power your equipment in the shop when everything is basically set up?  I know you have that battery-powered MIG spool-gun rig.  And looks like you had a generator hooked up to your wood gasifier.  Do you foresee a possibility to generate enough current to run larger 120v power tools (tablesaw, etc)?


Im designing and setting up a solar system for the property.  During the summer it will keep up with most projects, or should I say tools electrical needs.  During the winter I can supplement the batteries with a generator set up.  I have two generator set ups I'm working on one is woodgas powered the other a diesel generator I can pull from to charge batteries and such.  Usually I'm not doing many projects in the shop during the short winter days.   Im usually away trapping and such on my trapline.  The solar is sized to keep up with regular winter loads for us lights and such.  Hope this answers your questions?

Heres a little video of my spot. I don't talk much....your welcome.

Thanks for the vid, Jim.  I'm impressed.

I like your "glove dryer".  And you've put a lot of thought and time into your off-grid setup.

Those Lincoln machines are nice, eh?  I've got one — a MigPak 180.  (Doesn't show in my shop pics, but it now sits on a cart to the left of the white sandblast cabinet.)  Are you running yours on 120v ?  Mine's wired into 240v — standard for those rigs in western Canada.

Thanks man! place is usually messy from work but I don't trust a clean shop! I run it 120 on a Honda eu6500, runs perfect. That has been the best little welder! The first welder I purchased was almost twenty years ago, it was the Lincoln sp100. It was in a shop fire if you can believe it. I cleaned that little buger up and it ran for 12-15 years without so much as a hiccup. I sold my synchrowave 200 when we left the grid as I knew I couldn't produce enough power to tig weld anything bigger than what I can mig. But I do prefer Lincoln over Miller generally. I had a 3000sf fab shop prior to moving here, I miss it but not enough to return to the city!! That sandblaster is a beast! I finally got a SB that worked 8 months before I moved.... has to sell it lol. small sacrifices and small victories.

Joel I also use a Lincoln mig pak 180, currently on 110v with .35 flux core wire.    your photos look so neat and organized compared to my mess inside the pole barn.  Good news is I just refurbished some large steel locking tool cabinets and I'm starting to organize a bunch of my own stuff.  The barn isn't mine and half of the junk inside belongs to my stepfather, who is also my boss.  As much as I'd like to clean and organize lots of the stuff inside, ultimately half of it it his, and he's quite the hoarder when it comes to organizing or throwing stuff out lol.  That being said im impressed by your work area photos and the organization I see there, so I've recently installed the DIY refurbished large tool cabinets in an effort to help organize my own part of the madness, my own tools and things that i like to take care of.  Mostly i just wanted to say how good your work area looked in the photos, if I hadn't mentioned it previously.   its inspirational lol.  Also you originally asked about heat, I just might hook up one of my home made rocket stoves or wood burning stove or something this winter so I can procrastinate less about completing projects and such in the Canadian cold

John McDoodle wrote:Mostly i just wanted to say how good your work area looked in the photos, if I hadn't mentioned it previously./quote]   its inspirational lol.

Gosh, you make me feel good with the compliment.  But, for one thing, I took that picture of my basement "shop" area just after I'd tidied it up one time, and when I've been working on a project or fixing a number of things it can look quite different.😛  My prime concern is how to find specific tools when I need them, so the ones that don't hang on the wall are mostly kept in one of three different tool boxes I have.

Unfortunately, at the present time, my tablesaw and lumber storage are up the stairs and a short walk away from the basement.  But my welding, grinding, sandblasting area is behind our barn, about a hundred feet away from my basement benches.😩 Drives me nuts with some projects!

John McDoodle wrote:Also you originally asked about heat, I just might hook up one of my home made rocket stoves or wood burning stove or something this winter so I can procrastinate less about completing projects and such in the Canadian cold

Sounds like a good plan.  Good luck with it.  While I don't have any problems venting welding fumes from my welding area (because it's halfway open-air), I really wish that metal-working area was part of a true shop.

Most of my tools are either in a tent, or in our shipping container storage. Next spring summer we work very hard to get the house built, during which I also get some better, still temporary, housing for my "shop".

My benches, sawbuck and shaving horse are under the snow ...

Can't get the picture off my phone right now

I’ve wondered about how the Wheaton Lab & Basecamp deal with the need (if there is one) for a sheltered, warmable space for building & maintaining things.  I know that things like rocket heaters and ovens get built there.  Possibly this is only done by visiting experts who bring their own tools & equipment… possible it’s done exclusively out in the open air.  ???  (I bet somebody knows.)

And even if the basecamp & lab folks are steering clear of owning tractors, backhoes, or tillers they probably need to maintain a truck, a car, etc.  Is that sheltered or only a fir-weather activity?

Joel Bercardin wrote:

Travis Johnson wrote:I have a great wife, if it is too cold I set up sawhorses in the kitchen and go to work building this or that.

My partner is great too.  But she doesn't like any trace of sawdust in the house.  So I never cut wood down in the basement with any larger tool than my jigsaw.

I grew up in a log cabin in the woods and in the early days it was pretty cramped: 6 people, no shop for Dad, octagonal cabin built with 12-foot logs. Mom took a DIM view of messy projects (say, small engine rebuilds) on her kitchen table.

But she BADLY wanted some decent chairs. Dad had cut some birch logs (closest thing to a hardwood in the sub-arctic boreal forest) and ripped some rough planks with a chainsaw mill, which were carefully drying in our loft that winter. Come deep January at about fifty below zero he took them down, pronounced them as dry as they were going to get, and set up his Sears radial arm saw (powered by his welder/generator) on, yes, the kitchen table! Whereupon he spent days milling precise notched little chair parts and filling the cabin with fine birch dust. While we kids watched and marveled as Mom made not one peep of complaint. It was an early lesson in the miraculous transformation that can come over a person when their needs are getting met.

Thanks, Dan.  I love that story!

Travis & Dan... wish my partner were as tolerant as the women you guys have described!  (Oh, well... she has lots of good qualities & really pitches in on the homestead.)

Dan, do you have a shop now?  If so, what's it like (and got any pics)?

I really wish I had a roofed, warmed space I could do metal cutting, grinding & welding in, in winter.

I was trying to hint ... without coming out and saying directly ... that tolerance in such situations was quite the opposite of my mother's usual mode.  Our living situation was so cramped and squalid that she normally  brought all the ferocity of a wolverine -- and perhaps less personal warmth -- to her defense of such civilized touches as she was able to craft for us.  This story is most remarkable for its exceptionality.  The only other similar example I can think of is a tale of sheer raw lack of alternatives.  One winter years later when my father was so badly burned on his upper body that he could barely move and due to mechanical failures we had no reliable family transportation for hauling water from the municipal water source about 1.5 miles from our cabin, one of my sisters as a young teen was instructed and directed to remove the engine from a snowmobile and bring it into the cabin, whereupon she replaced the piston rings, working on a sheet of plywood located where the kitchen table usually sat, while Dad observed and gave advice and fumed because he couldn't do the work himself.   Nobody was happy about that shitshow but it was obviously a hell winter for everybody (Dad not least) and nobody wanted to haul water by hand either, so Mom sucked it up that time too.  

As for me, I have no shop or workspace and it's getting ludicrous.  In fall and spring I work off of makeshift pallet tables (uncovered and exposed to the elements, losing small parts down between the slats) and during the heat of summer or the couple of too-cold winter months I have no place to do greasy or dusty work.  I also have an extreme storage problem.  I am working toward the things I need to build a shed (in fact just yesterday I finally got a decent chainsaw, which will let me cut a better volume of structural roundwood this winter than I have been managing so far with hand tools) so there is hope on both fronts.  Once I get under cover I can build some decent workbenches and shelving and I'll be much further ahead of the game.  

Shorter term my more prosperous brother-in-law is having a large turnkey concrete slab and metal shop building installed on his place a few miles away this fall and it's going to take him at least a year to fill it up with all of his long-term projects.  So this winter I'm going to be a shameless parasite with my own bench in the corner of his new shop.  Actually I plan to pay my way by hauling all my $5.00 garage sale buckets of bolts and hardware over there and sorting them in his space.  I've also got a dozen or more of those drawer-cabinets full of random hardware from estate sales that need sorting.  I'm just going to faux-donate much of that to his shop in a sorted condition; it does me infinitely more good all put in order in a climate-controlled building under electric light where I can go and get what I need when I need it, than it does all mixed up in random buckets and crates on a pallet under a tarp with ragweed and Maximillian sunflowers growing eight feet high around it at my place.  

Here is my shop.  Its currently a bigger mess than normal. We just poured half the floor and I'm building a new rocket mass heater
24 x 32 I built it in 1992.   Double skinned wall's with tar paper between. No insulation yet... poured the first half of the floor in 1994 was going to pour the other half "Real Soon" its 2018 now and I just poured the other half this summer!  It was heated with a double barrel stove for all these years , a real wood hog if you thought you wanted to work out there in the winter.  The rear door was a slider... (key word there WAS) next summer that door is coming out and a solid wall with another window and a  home built set of french doors wide enough to roll the cherry picker thru so I can pressure wash engines out back is going in. Eventually it will get insulation, might even give it a half loft so I can store more "good stuff" up there.
As you can see I do a lot of automotive work, back when the kids were little I even ran a semi successful auto repair business out there.
I have another building I call the motor barn where I store any extra engines. And another for transmissions / transfer cases and other odd junk "good stuff"
Years ago I worked under a tarp propped up with 2x4's ... I've come a long way since then.  

I like it Tom.  Thanks for posting.  It'll be great when you have your new R.M.H. finished and firing.

Your shop's roomy compared with my 'workshop' areas, none of which are specifically heated in winter.

Dan, I just hit the "Like" button for one of your posts, above.  I really admire your grit & spirit.

I hope you've got some kind of reasonably comfortable shop work situation at this point.

I still mildly (& silently) curse my own inconvenient situation... but I'm getting by.

Hi All;  Got some more work done on my shop this spring.  Non Sliding door is gone and a solid wall with two new windows and a 36" door are installed!   RMH has been up and running since mid winter.
WHY did I wait 28 years to do this ???