"Creative Space" (Post # 119)

The Shed

A quarter inch to the foot scale model of The Shed I built
to better visualize the design in three dimensions.

I've seen a lot of articles in car magazines showcasing enthusiast's garages. Some of them are spotless and not garages for work at all. More like museum exhibits with expensive artwork on the walls, patterned spotless floors, and cars posed dramatically under studio lights as if on display at the Louvre. My garage is for work, not display. My wife started calling it The Shed after seeing the movie "The World's Fastest Indian" (https://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Fastest-Indian-Anthony-Hopkins/dp/B000F8DBDK). 

The wet work area with storage underneath the sink, lab
oven on the left and mini refrigerator and coffee machine
on the right.

The main thing it has going for it is that it was purpose-built for working on cars, The Alfatross in particular. I started with a budget and a patch of land. I knew I needed a big open room with a 12 ft ceiling, lots of storage space, and a second smaller room for "clean" work. I contracted with a designer and went around and around with him for months. He wanted it to be an architectural statement. I just wanted it to be functional and finally drew up my own plans, made a model to make sure it would work, and started building. It isn't perfect, but after working in it for several years now I realize I got at lot of things right. It isn't a showplace. What I want to talk about now is the space itself and what I have learned about what makes a good work environment.

Keep it clean.  Automotive restoration is by nature dusty, greasy, oily and smokey, but you and your work will suffer if you don't keep it clean! The Shed's epoxy floor probably gets the most comments from visitors. But it is practical, too.  It costs a lot to do it right, but it's worth the extra effort. A lot of shops featured in magazines don't seem to have a water source or a big, deep sink. I have a 6 ft long indestructible plastic combination deep sink, drain rack, wet storage and draining tub and stainless steel stand that I picked up years ago from a photography shop put out of business by digital imaging. I added a proper restaurant kitchen dish-washing spray head on a long flex hose. The shed is on well water, which is really hard (lots of dissolved minerals), so an item on my list of improvements is a water softener. I use distilled bottled water for tasks where purity matters.

Get comfortable. It's hard to do good work when you're uncomfortable. Maintaining a comfortable temperature, humidity, and air circulation combination is probably the most important task. Here in Santa Fe humidity is very low so even when the air temperature is in the 90s it isn't uncomfortable. It's the winters we have to worry about! I use a pair of radiant tube heaters that, in conjunction with a large bank of windows on the building's south side and some very good insulation, keep the interior so cozy I am comfortable in shirt sleeves even in the dead of winter. 

I generally prefer to stand while working, so most of my tables and benches are tall, but I also have low tables where I can sit to work when necessary. It's hard to concentrate when you are hungry, thirsty or sleepy, so I have a microwave oven, toaster oven, coffee machine, and a mini-refrigerator stocked with drinks and leftovers.

The bank of windows on the south side of The Shed is 16 ft
wide and 6 ft high. The steel shelving under the windows
gives me extra storage space and the wooden counter top
provides well-lit work space at a comfortable stand-up
height.

Let in the light. If you are past the half-century mark like me, you really notice the quality and quantity of light in your work space. If you can't see it, you can't fix it. Natural light is great. The 16 ft long, 6 ft tall  bank of windows on the south side lets in lots of light and heat in winter. The bottoms can be opened for cross-ventilation. I learned pretty fast that I needed insulated blinds that can be lowered to block out unwanted heat in the summer and reduce heat loss in winter. The windows needed to be on the south side to take advantage of the powerful insolation effect in winter here in New Mexico at 7,000 ft. But that put the overhead door and the 20 by 20 ft apron on the north side--meaning a lot of snow shoveling in winter! 

In addition to the windows, florescent lights and large skylights keep the work space bright. The long black tube mounted near the ceiling is one of two radiant heaters mounted on opposite sides of the room with their reflectors turned 45 degrees from parallel with the floor.

The two largest work tables are on casters. The one in the
foreground used to be the trolley for The Alfatross' body
and chassis after the suspension and running gear were
removed. 

The high ceiling let me put the bottoms of the windows at about 4 ft where the wood-topped steel shelving below them makes a well-lit 16 ft-long, 18 in-deep work bench. 


The Shed has three 4 ft by 4 ft skylights in the main work area and another one in the clean room. In addition to the windows and skylights I have 10 multi-tube florescent fixtures suspended from the ceiling at various heights. Some are higher to bathe large areas whereas others are lower to intensify light over work tables. At this point I haven't paid much attention to color temperature or fixture quality, but just making sure there is sufficient volume of light. 

I spend a lot of time at this table, built on top of a cheap
motorcycle lift. It can be adjusted to heights ranging from
21 to 38 in. The table and pedestal can be removed when 
the lift is needed

Keep your space reconfigurable.  I learned from experience in archaeological conservation labs that you should put as many things as you can on wheels to make it easier to reconfigure the space to match the nature of the work to be done. That's one reason why I went with a MaxJax two-post lift. If it is in the way I just unbolt the posts and move it. Yes, the MaxJax lifts only to 4 ft, but I don't see that as a problem. All you need is a chair on casters, lights, and a tool carrier on wheels and you can do everything as well as you could if the car were raised to 7 ft and you were standing underneath. Wheel jacks are another way to move cars around in confined spaces. 

This tool caddie was made from a wheel dolly and scrap.
It is low enough to fit under a MaxJax lift and carries a
full complement of sockets, screwdrivers, spanners,
pliers, and other tools.

Outdoor work space. I always like working outdoors, weather permitting, and there are a lot of jobs that you really can't do indoors, like soda-blasting an entire car! The concrete apron outside the overhead door became much more useful and comfortable after I covered it with a 16 by 16 ft canopy. Sunlight kills paint, upholstery, rubber, vinyl and just about everything else including your skin. Up here in the mountains where there isn't much atmosphere to protect us, dermatology is a growth industry! 

But the most important thing to remember about  space is that there is never enough of it! That's why The Shed is in the process of having a "blessed event": The Shedlet!