Having recently moved into a new place, I'm in the process of setting up a workshop space in our garage. AKA, I'm converting the garage from squirrel sanctuary into a usable shop space for woodwork and craft projects.
In my mind, two of the most important aspects that define a good shop space are storage and work surfaces. You need easily accessible places to store your tools and raw materials for projects, and ergonomic spaces to layout and work on those projects. And, ideally, those are two separate places -- I am constantly fighting with my propensity to leave worksurfaces scattered with various tools and offcuts in the middle of a project.
As you can see from the "before" photo above, my current setup in the garage leaves a lot to be desired in both categories. My only real worksurface is the table saw, and there is no storage to speak of (besides the gravel floor itself).
So, I figured that the first real project to set up the workshop should be a utility cart, offering a large top surface with clamping options, and plenty of easily-accessible tool storage below.
I started by laying out a simple design and dimensions for the cart. In order to maximize storage, I wanted plenty of drawers. I decided to go with an ultra-simple design for the drawers, using pre-made Uline bins sliding in and out on simple rails, as I wanted to get this thing put together quickly and easily.
After that, I got some 2x4s and got to work.
The frame is ultra-simple as well, but I did put some thought into the design. The 2x4s are oriented to allow easy clamping options to the top surface all around the perimeter (at least, once the top is installed later), and also to leave space to hang tools in a recessed space on either narrow side of the cart.
I want to be able to move the cart around easily, so large casters on the bottom are a no-brainer. Unfortunately, the garage has a loose-gravel floor, which makes moving anything around a major pain, even with casters. But, it's the best I can do with what I've got, short of making a new floor surface for the garage.
Next, there are some pieces of hardboard installed to create simple shelves, close in the "drawers" a bit, and offer a surface to hang tools on the outside of the cart.
I decided to put the hardboard walls on the inside of the frame, so that hanging tools there would be within the "silhouette" of the cart, meaning I wouldn't constantly be bumping into them when moving around the cart.
Originally, I planned to use pieces of wood as the "rails" that my bins would slide on.
However, I decided to use aluminum angle instead, as this offered several advantages. The cross-section is smaller than that of the wood I would need to use, allowing me to save some space. The rails are very smooth, of course, meaning the bins slide in and out super easily, without me having to sand of maintain the sliding surface. And, the angle can function as a wall as well as a rail, meaning I don't need another hardboard wall on the interior side of the bins to keep them contained; the rails themselves are enough to do that.
I drilled out some mounting holes in the aluminum rails, after cutting them down to size. Then, using a template piece of wood for consistent spacing, I installed them one-at-a-time from the bottom up. It came together super quickly, and since I had done my planning beforehand, the 6 bins fit perfectly back-to-back on each level.
Finally, I installed a quick shelf on the opposite side of the bins, and put a top surface in place.
At the moment, I'm not ultra-concerned with creating the most perfect, flattest workbench; so, a plywood top fits my needs just fine. With a few recessed screws into set into the frame, the build is complete!
Immediate, easy improvement. While this is far from the fanciest build, the functionality can't be beat. While I do have plans to continue improving the storage and useability of this workshop space with shelving etc, the cart has instantly and drastically improved my workshop experience.
Having a place to store and easily access most of my tools, as well as an actual work surface, has promoted my workshop from "janky" to "moderately respectable". And if there's anything I love, it's an efficiency upgrade -- I'm looking forward to getting lots of use out of this one!