Back inside the shop...with a LOT of progress

Apologies in advance for the long post, but if you're interested in this subject or if you plan on doing something like this yourself, I think it's worth the read.

I'm back inside the shop out of the heat. The mini-split system hasn't been installed yet, but all of the insulation that I added to the shop is really keeping it nice and cool inside.

I keep talking about the vision I have for the shop, so perhaps I should share some of that vision. This is my current design plan for the shop.

I'm sure there will be many changes, but this is what I have in mind right now. Imagine you just walked in through the blue door. What you see directly in front of you is the table saw. To your right is the planer and miter saw station. To your left is a sharpening station. Across the room is a drill press and a bandsaw. There's also a wood storage cart and a homemade panel saw on the far wall (the one that you see the back of in the picture). There are two shelves opposite the roll-up door that are suspended from the ceiling for storage. Beneath them is a router and shaper station.

That's most of the vision, but there's a catch. All of this equipment will be raised up 9 inches from the concrete floor and resting on a wooden floor that allows for electrical routing and under-floor dust collection. I know, no small feat.

Since the last update on the interior of the shop, I've built the suspended shelves (they're called mighty shelves and there's a guy on the web named Contractor Kurt to thank for them -- they're awesome and these are not the first ones I've built). I also built the wall-mounted lumber rack opposite the blue door.

Now, I'm starting on the raised floor. To begin this process, I'm drilling into the concrete block base of the workshop and mounting a ledger board around the entire shop's perimeter using tapcon screws. I'm keeping it level using a laser level. I chose the height for the laser based on the clearance I need under the 2x4s that will be supporting the 3/4-inch plywood flooring. That clearance is 6.5 inches (6-inch ducting) at the highest point of the floor. Since the floor isn't completely level, lower parts of the floor will have upwards of 8 inches of clearance under the floor structure. I'm making the raised floor as level as I possibly can.

This is what it started as. The tapcon screws hold the ledger to the wall, but I'm adding vertical support in the form of 2x4s with pocket holes keeping them in place to provide a true load-bearing structure. I don't want to have to rely on the shear strength of any fasteners for this floor. Vertical support directly on the concrete is the way to do this.

This floor is going to take a while, but it's a step in the right direction towards achieving the vision of this workshop, so I'll put in the time.