Things tend to slow down for me in December as far as commissions. Most people are busy buying holiday presents and aren’t ready to think about that big furniture purchase. So this year I decide to dedicate basically the whole month of December to making over my workshop… aka garage shop! And I am so excited. Ever since I started building it has been so hard to make time to improve my work space… yeah I had made stuff here and there, but nothing with a real plan. Well this time I had a plan!

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I have been buying things for the past few months with all good intentions of improving the shop, but hadn’t gotten to installing them. Like all new LED lights I bought from Costco about 4 months ago…. or the WEN air cleaner that I bought off Amazon about that same time. Well lights are in and it is literally night and day in the shop. I ended up putting in 9 lights for my two (2) car garage…. well to be honest I recruited the hubby to do this for me… and I might just get 3 more! I don’t want any dark corners. But just to give you an idea of how AWESOME they are, I was working late the other night with the garage door open and I didn’t even realize that it had gone from day to dark outside. I can already tell a huge improvement in my photos!!! Oh and if you are curious they were 4000K LED lights.

Then next on the agenda was to completely makeover my miter station. The reason I wanted to focus on this area of the shop was because my current set up just wasn't keeping up anymore. I only had about two (2) feet on each side and I want at least 4’ on the left side for repeatable cuts. It also didn’t have dust collection and was going to be kind of awkward to add. Plus, the bottom half was all open and just ended up being used for scrap wood that I hardly ever used. So I knew in the new miter station I wanted it to be bigger, have dust collection, and storage.

So I teamed up with my friends at Kreg Tool to create a series of workshop builds to put on their DIY project plan site, BuildSomething.com. I am calling it the Modular Miter Station. It is going to include:

Click on any of the links above to learn more about each phase of the series and get free plans to build your own!

So now that I have that half of the shop looking awesome, it is now time to get the rest of the shop in order. Because to be honest, other than the lights, it is a total wreck! So starting tomorrow I will start to utilize all that new storage space that I built with the Modular Miter Station. I know I what to move the air compressor and all its hoses into its new home and get all my hardware and screws organized in all my new Milwaukee small parts organizers I bought. I also want to build a cart dedicated to my Kreg Foreman. I recently bought it its own dedicated vacuum so I need to get it hooked up, that way I don’t have to mess with vac hoses and outlets and moving stuff around every time I use it.

I also am thinking about building a Flip Top Tool Stand with the plans from Brad at FixThisBuildThat.com, because my planer needs to get up off the ground. I don’t have the sander to put on it yet, but I do want one so might as well build that while I have the time. And when I do get one it will have a home all ready for it.

Another shop upgrade I plan on doing before next summer is insulating the garage door. This past summer was hot, so anything to help keep it cooler in the shop. Oh and fingers crossed I can get an air conditioner installed in there instead of just having the swamp cooler. But all in due time!

And then the last thing on my list for shop upgrades is getting my router table installed in my table saw. My hubby helped with the first half of it, but I still need to add some legs before it can be permanently installed because it is so heavy.

So more to come on all of this. I’ll check back in a couple of weeks and let you know how I did completing all these projects, but in the meantime go and check out the Modular Miter Station series.. Phase 1 - The Foundation, Phase 2 - Air Cart, Phase 3 - Assembly Cart, and Phase 4 - Dust Hood and then let me know in the comments what your favorite part is!

Thanks for following… Happy Building… and have an AWESOME day!

Sadie Mae