Presupuestos

tools rusted quickly and, since there was no closeable door, occasionally dis-appeared entirely. I actually built some pretty nice pieces in that shop, but I was young and foolish and willing to put up with such shortcomings. Now I want my shop to be cozy and comfortable, to pro-vide protection against the elements, and to be a space that I (and my tools) can live and work in safely.

Walls and Ceilings

The most basic elements of a workshop—

the walls that protect us from wind and rain and keep hooligans from making off with our precious implements—are easy to take for granted unless they’re not there. Noted furniture maker Sam Maloof told me that when he built his first proper workshop, almost two years elapsed between the time he put up the walls and roof and when he put on the sheathing and siding to enclose them.

During the interim period, Maloof moved in and worked in the shop daily, simply covering up his machines at night to keep off the morning dew.

While I assume that the walls of your shop are at least sheathed on the out-side, most small shop spaces that I have visited have exposed stud walls inside, including most home garages and sheds.

Covering the inside walls not only makes the inside of the shop feel more finished but also can improve the quality of the workspace.

Light-colored interior walls bounce around both natural and artificial light, improving the effectiveness of the light

coming in through windows and skylights as well as the artificial light produced by light fixtures. And covering your shop’s interior walls also provides an opportu-nity to add insulation, possibly the most important physical improvement that will make your shop more comfortable.

Wall materials

Ease of installation and availability make two materials ideal for shop walls. Gyp-sum wallboard, commonly called drywall or Sheetrock®, is the most commonly used interior surface material. But if you like the “wood look” you can install thin wood paneling, quickly and efficiently.

When renowned furniture maker Sam Maloof moved to Alta Loma, Calif., in 1952, he built a new shop out of lumber a local dealer gave him on credit, but it was nearly two years before he was able to complete the shop’s redwood siding. Maloof built several additions to the shop, including the bench room shown here.

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Drywall Drywall is inexpensive and readily available; it’s relatively easy to install; and most important, it retards the spread of fire in a building, which is why many building codes require it for interior surfaces. While drywall’s heavy weight makes it a chore to install on high walls and ceilings, its density helps reduce the amount of machine noise that escapes from the shop. And if you can live with an interior that Martha Stewart wouldn’t be incarcerated in, you can skip the most difficult part of a drywall job:

taping, texturing, and painting.

If you cut and fit individual pieces together, mounting them with drywall screws on walls and ceilings, you can drywall a small shop in a day, ending up with an off-white interior surface that’s clean looking, even if it’s not entirely finished.

The only problem with drywall is the effect it can have on sound quality inside your shop. Smooth, hard drywall tends to reflect high-frequency noise very ef-fectively, which can make running a router or tablesaw with a whiney blade unpleasant.

Fortunately, adding shelves, cabinets, and even machines to the shop helps dampen reflected sound. If your shop has one or more large, open drywall surfaces, you can attenuate interior noise by installing sound channel and cover-ing the surfaces with sound board (see

“Reducing Machinery Noise,” on p. 42) or a heavy, pleated drape made of loosely woven fabric, such as burlap.

Wood paneling Thin wood paneling, which is typically made from cheap ply-wood or composite board covered with

“photo-grained” vinyl to resemble real wood, is relatively light and inexpensive, especially if you buy one of the less-popular styles that your local lumberyard has on sale, such as “marshmallow ash”

or “ultra-pecky pecan.”

Choosing a light-color finish is impor-tant, as it will help bounce and diffuse lighting. Darker natural-wood finishes can make the shop feel warmer and more traditional, though it’s probably best to install it on only one or two walls; dark Insulating and paneling

interior shop walls make a shop more comfortable. Light-colored drywall helps bounce light around the shop and, should a shop fire occur, retard the rate of it spreading.

Walls, Ceilings, and Floors

paneling an entire shop can make a small space feel like a cave.

Wood paneling is easy to cut and trim, and large pieces can be nailed or stapled (using a pneumatic gun) to studs and joists in minutes. Unfortunately, paneling doesn’t prevent the transmission of noise in the way drywall does. Because the thin material can resonate like the top of a guitar from the lower-frequency noise produced by machines, it’s a good idea to run a bead of construction adhesive along framing members before nailing

panels in place to prevent the paneling from rattling and buzzing.

insulatiOn

If you’re heating an uninsulated shop, your heating bill might amount to the equivalent cost of a new cordless drill or a set of fine chisels every winter. And if your heating system can’t keep up with your shop’s heat loss, the shop will still feel cold and uncomfortable during the coldest months of the year.

Choosing and installing insulation that’s R-rated for your climatic zone in both ceilings and walls is a necessity if you live in an area with harsh winter weather.

Walls and Ceilings

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Adding insulation to your shop’s ceiling and walls isn’t particularly diffi-cult—you can do the work yourself—and is an expense that will add value to your shop while making it more comfortable to work in. If you work in a typical wood-stud garage or outbuilding with a ceiling (or at least existing ceiling rafters) locat-ed in one of the country’s more temper-ate zones, the cost of insulating is likely to run under a dollar per square foot of floor area.

Walls are generally much easier to in-sulate than ceilings and roofs. You don’t need to worry about ventilation, and the size of the wall studs determines which insulation to use: R-11 or R-13 for 2×4 walls and R-19 or R-21 for 2×6 walls.

(R-value refers to how well a material insulates: The thicker and better an in-sulator, the higher the R-value number.) Shops with walls that have already been paneled or drywalled can have insulation blown in (call your local insulation con-tractor for more information).

Because heat rises, a shop will rarely benefit from having its floor insulated, except in some cases where the under-side of the floor is exposed, such as a shop built high on piers or on a hillside that drops away.

Insulating conventional ceilings If your shop has a drywall ceiling with an attic space above it that’s big enough to crawl around in, you’ve got it made. Insu-lation is simply a matter of laying bats of fiberglass insulation between the ceiling joists.

Just make sure the attic space is ventilated so you won’t have moisture problems. The climate you live in and how temperate you want your shop to stay will determine the insulation you’ll choose in terms of R-value. See

“Regional Insulation Recommendations for Residences,” on the facing page, for a general guideline on how much ceil-ing and wall insulation is recommended for various climate zones around the country.

Installing insulation in shop walls before paneling them is a breeze. Here insulation specialist Jean Brock fits bats of R-11 fiberglass insulation in a stud wall.

Walls, Ceilings, and Floors

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Insulation