The two bedroom house came with a detached four car garage. I'd converted the left half to my jewelry making shop very early on, running 30 amp 220 volt electrical service along with water, gas and sewer line to it and insulating the walls and ceiling. The jewelry shop was later converted for stain glass. September 1st of 2002 I started converting it once again to a Layout/ Assembly/ Finishing space. Pulled the carpeting, epoxied the floor, added some X10 remote overhead electrical outlets, more fluorescent lighting, built a semi-soundproof room for the compressor and dust collector, along with a plywood storage thing-a-majig you'll see more of later.

The layout/ assembly bench, the dust collector, the compressor, my plywood stash and the small parts storage unit had been in the right side of the "garage" (a term loosely interpreted in California as a place to store everything BUT a car). The space created in the right side of The Shop allows for the Delta Drum Sander I picked up used, a General 75-075 Mortiser and a real woodworking bench (which was a year in the making).

Here's the BIG PICTURE - the whole shop at 1/4 inch = 1 foot scale with a one foot grid on the floor so you can see the clearance around things.