Synopsis: No room in the garage? Basement not an option? Consider what Ken St. Onge did when he needed shop space: He bought a prefabricated shed and converted it into his full-time woodshop. Because a pre-built shed doesn’t need a cement foundation and is built in a factory, it’s much less expensive than building an addition or stand-alone shop on your property. It can have taller ceilings than a garage and bigger doors than a basement, both big pluses for a woodworker. You can put a shed just about anywhere, too. Here’s a soup to nuts look at Ken’s experience, so you can gauge whether a shop in a shed is right for you.

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Working as an editor at Fine Woodworking is a great job, and one of the best benefits to the job is access to an amazing shop. It’s big, bright, heated and cooled, and full of great tools and machines. You could build just about anything in it.

After I left the magazine for a new job, I did all of my woodworking in my small two-car garage, but it was a struggle. Power, lighting, and temperature control were limited. And because I shared space with our cars I was always moving machines around, often while in the middle of a project. On top of that, my tool and machine collection had long since eclipsed the space. For all these reasons, fixing up the garage wasn’t an option. My finished basement is a family room, so it was out, too. An addition to the home or a stand-alone building would have been too expensive. I had to find a better path to a shop.

Then, one day, I saw a flyer for a company that makes and delivers completed sheds to your property, and thought, “Could it work?” As I’ve since discovered, the answer to that question is an emphatic “yes.” Because a pre-built shed doesn’t need a cement foundation and is completely constructed in a factory setting, it’s much less expensive than building an addition or stand-alone shop on your property. These sheds can have taller ceilings than a garage and bigger doors than a basement, both big pluses for a woodworker. You can put a shed just about anywhere, which is a great thing if you want to avoid disturbing your sleeping family and neighbors.

There are some challenges. First, you need to do some site work to make way for the shed. And sheds aren’t typically built to handle heavy machinery such as tablesaws, bandsaws, and jointers, so I needed the manufacturer to beef it up. It also needed to be outfitted with electricity and insulated against the heat and cold. In the end, I spent around $9,000 to get a shed ready to become a shop. Any site or electrical work you need done will cost extra. I’ll tell you about my experience, which should help you decide if this is the right option for you.

Photo: John Tetreault

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From Fine Homebuilding #244

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